Citizens
For Legitimate Governmentis a multi-partisan
activist group established to expose the Bush
coup d'etat, and to oppose the Bush
occupation in all of its manifestations.

January
2004 Archives, Page two

Ashcroft:
Iraq war justified due to Saddam's 'evil chemistry and evil biology'
Dictator Bush on Tuesday vigorously defended his decision to go to war
against Iraq despite chief inspector David Kay's conclusion that Saddam
Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, as the United States
had believed. Attorney General John Ashcroft, traveling in Vienna, Austria,
said the Iraq war was justified, even if banned weapons are never found,
because it eliminated the threat that Saddam might again resort to
"evil chemistry and evil biology."

Will
Giuliani replace Cheney in '04?
A well-placed source [to Jeannette Walls/Ashley Person] says that the
dictator will "most likely" drop Dick Cheney from his re-s-election
ticket and his first choice for a replacement is former New York City
mayor [and 9-11 cover-up crony] Rudy Giuliani.

US
denies 'imminent' threat warning
The White House [pack of insipid liars] today denied it ever warned
that Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent" threat to the United States.
It is already smarting from the failure so far to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. But if US Dictator George W. Bush never called
Saddam's Iraq an "imminent threat" in so many words, he said it was
"urgent". Vice pResident Dick Cheney
called it "mortal" and it was "immediate" to Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld.

Bush
Backs Away from Iraq WMD Certainty
In the wake of a top expert's conclusions that Iraq had no large stockpiles
of chemical and biological weapons, Dictator Bush on Tuesday dropped
his previous certainty that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the
reason given for the U.S.-led invasion.

Kay
Cites Evidence of Iraq DisarmingAction
Taken in '90s, Ex-Inspector Says
U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq found new evidence that Saddam Hussein's
regime quietly destroyed some stockpiles of biological and chemical
weapons in the mid-1990s, former chief inspector David Kay said yesterday.

Spin
row erupts as Hutton report is leaked to 'The Sun'
Poodle Tony Blair was plunged into a fresh row over spin today after
a leaked copy of the Hutton report claimed that Downing Street had been
cleared of any serious wrongdoing in the David Kelly affair... Meanwhile,
fresh doubts about the death of Dr Kelly were raised by three doctors
who questioned whether he took his own life. The
doctors suggested Dr Kelly could not have killed himself in the way
described to the inquiry.

BBC
buys up 'Hutton inquiry' Google links
Just 48 hours before Lord Hutton delivers his verdict on the controversy
surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the BBC has begun an advertising
experiment that involves buying up all internet search terms relating
to the inquiry. Despite being one of the main players in the drama,
anyone searching for "Hutton inquiry" or "Hutton report" on the UK's
most popular search engine Google is automatically directed to a
paid-for link to BBC Online's own news coverage of the inquiry.
[*Note by CLG reader Mark J. Yannone, "Their [guardian.co.uk's]
first paragraph is very misleading. Farther down the page, they mention
the truth: 'Through Google's Ad Words service advertisers can bid to
buy up search terms that relate to their business. The more they bid,
the higher up their link is shown on the right-hand side of the page
next to Google's normal results sorted by relevancy.'"]

Three
dead in Baghdad hotel blast
Three people have been killed in an explosion in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.
The blast hit the Shaheen hotel on the banks of the Tigris close to
the former US embassy shortly after dawn. The blast comes a day after
six American troops, two CNN employees and two Iraqi civilians were
killed in violence in and around Baghdad.

Widespread
attacks kill 13 in IraqSix U.S. soldiers, two CNN employees among dead --Five attacks
claimed the lives of 13 people in Iraq on Tuesday, including six U.S.
soldiers, two CNN employees, four Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi civilian,
according to police and military sources.

3
U.S. soldiers, 2 Iraqis killed in bombing
At least 4 others injured in ambush west of Baghdad --Three American
soldiers were killed and one was wounded in a large explosion west of
Baghdad Tuesday, the U.S. military said. Hospital staff said two Iraqi
civilians also were killed and three were injured.

British
soldier killed in blast at Afghan base
A British solider was killed and several more were reportedly injured
in an explosion today near the British base in the Afghan capital. Five
foreigners were killed nearby in a suicide bombing, said police.

Legal
fight puts Marine in limbo
For the last three years, Ocean Rose of Marietta has been trapped in
the military version of purgatory. Rose, 23, is among hundreds of members
of the armed forces who since 1998 have faced legal action for refusing
to obey the same order: Submit to a series of anthrax inoculations.

U.S.
broke international law, ACLU saysComplaints
filed with United Nations --The American Civil Liberties Union filed
a complaint Tuesday with the United Nations, alleging that many immigrants
imprisoned and deported during the investigation into the Sept. 11 terror
attacks were denied fundamental rights under international law.

9/11
Commission Says It Needs More Time to Complete Inquiry
The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks announced on Tuesday that it was seeking an extension of its
deadline to complete the investigation until at least July, raising
the prospect of a public fight with the White
House and a final report delivered in the heat of the presidential
campaign. Commission officials said there was no way to finish their
work on time, a situation they attribute in part to delays by the
Bush dictatorship in turning over documents and other evidence.

High
Court Won't Review Scalia's Recusal Decision
Chief inJustice William H. Rehnquist,
responding to questions from two U.S. senators about a duck hunting
trip involving Justice Antonin Scalia and Vice pResident
Dick Cheney, said Monday that it is up to each justice, not the court
as a whole, to decide whether to withdraw from a pending case.

Paper-trail
hearing set for Feb. 6
A Palm Beach County circuit judge agreed Monday to speed up consideration
of a lawsuit that challenges the paperless 'voting' machines used by
15 Florida counties.

1
in 4 Schools Fall Short Under Bush Law
Dictator Bush's signature education law has already put more than a
quarter of the nation's public schools on academic probation, and thousands
more are likely to face federal sanctions in the coming years, according
to the most comprehensive study to date of the law's impact.

Teenager's
Conservative Club Causes Uproar
(CA) Tim Bueler started the Conservative Club to balance what he calls
the 'liberal bias' in his public school, but when some schoolmates found
his [Reichwing] views offensive and threatened to beat him up, the 17-year-old
claims the principal and teachers turned the other way. A recent issue
of the club newsletter, Conservative Agenda, has riled some students
-- and teachers -- who claim Bueler is nothing but a young Nazi [he
is!!]. One teacher posted a flier encouraging students to "take
a stand against the neo-conservative wing nuts who call themselves Americans."

Cartoonist
calls Condi Rice 'murderer' – againThis
time 'Boondocks' creator levels charge on national TV --Aaron
McGruder, a black syndicated cartoonist who's getting his own prime-time
TV series on Faux, called National Security Adviser [and Reichwing
whackjob] Condoleezza Rice "a murderer" for her role in the
Iraq war.

Kerry
Wins in N.H.; Dean Second
Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts won the New Hampshire primary tonight,
defeating former Vermont governor Howard Dean and taking another step
toward the Democratic nomination for president with his second consecutive
victory.

The
Punch and Judy Dean Show
--by Alexander Stille "Diane Sawyer's interview with Howard Dean
and his wife last week was a textbook case of everything that is wrong
with television coverage of politics. It reduced his campaign to the
banal level of mere personality and perceived missteps, replacing issues
with image — it was a frame-up.
Out of the 96 questions that Sawyer asked, 90 were about personality
and temperament and only six were even vaguely about issues; virtually
all 96 were hostile and negative."

Difference
between us and Dean? Not a whole yell of a lot
--by Dave Lieber "...[T]o Howard Dean, on behalf of our nation,
I offer my most sincere apology. Many, if not most of us, yell or at
the very least want to yell about something at least once a day. We
are more like you than we would dare admit. If we don't like you for
what you did, then maybe we don't like ourselves."

Al
Franken Knocks Down Dean Heckler
Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator
to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean. The
trouble started when several supporters of fringe presidential 'candidate'
[and Rove troll] Lyndon Larouche began shouting accusations at
Dean.

Compassion
for a homeless man
--Justin Walker's Campaign Diary "Date: Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa Place: Parking garage with Dennis Kucinich
--Saturday night, I found myself in a parking garage with Dennis Kucinich
and a sleeping homeless man. This is our story. It begins with me, a
life-long Republican at an Iowa Democratic Party fundraiser. Four presidential
candidates speak. Thousands of dollars are raised. As we leave the ballroom,
I ask Kucinich a question that mentions a homeless man sleeping in the
stairwell of the hotel's parking garage. Kucinich immediately responds,
"He's there now? I'll go visit him."... [a must read]

9/11
Panel Faults U.S. For Letting Hijackers InThe U.S. government fumbled repeated opportunities to stop many of
the men responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks from entering
the country, missing fraudulent passports and other warning signs that
should have attracted greater scrutiny, according to a preliminary report
released yesterday.

al
Qaeda Military Boss Got U.S. Visa Despite Indictment
Suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed received a U.S.
visa a few weeks before the attacks, despite a 1996 indictment linking
him to earlier plots, but there is
no evidence he entered the country, investigators said on Monday.

Sept.
11 Panel Wants Extension on Report
An independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks says it
can't finish its final report before late July, putting it at odds
with House leaders[and the White House] who oppose a delay
that would push the report's release closer to the November s-election.

Dr
Kelly 'did not kill himself'An American confidante of David
Kelly has cast doubt on whether his death was suicide. Days before
Lord Hutton's report into his death is published, Mai Pederson claimed
the Government scientist received death threats
because of his work in Iraq. She said she was surprised that he had
apparently taken 20 painkillers before slashing his wrist in remote
woodland - because he had an aversion to swallowing tablets.

Nearly
all WMD claims wrong: Kay
The Central Intelligence Agency's outgoing chief weapons inspector,
David Kay, has concluded that the US was almost certainly wrong
in its pre-war belief that Iraq had any significant stockpiles of weapons
of mass destruction.

White
House Is Less Certain Now About Iraq's Arms
The White House began to back away on Monday from its assertions that
Iraq had illegal weapons, saying it now wanted to compare prewar intelligence
assessments with what may be actually found there. While Republican
leaders have focused on the C.I.A. and how it gathered intelligence,
Democrats have called for a close look at how the White House used that
information.

Bush
Under Pressure Over Iraqi Elections, WMD
Dictator Bush was under pressure on two fronts on Monday as calls grew
in Iraq for early elections while at home his pre-W-ar
assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction faced mounting criticism.

Howard
still unrepentant on Iraq war
The Prime Minister, John Howard, said yesterday he would never retreat
from his decision to join the war against Iraq, even if the Government's
prewar claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction
proved false.

Iraq
War Not Humanitarian, Group Says
The war in Iraq cannot be justified as an intervention in defense of
human rights even though it ended a brutal regime, Human Rights Watch
said Monday, dismissing one of the Bush dictatorship's main arguments
for the invasion.

Rocket
Fired at U.S. Post in Baghdad Resistance fighters [?] fired
a rocket on Monday night across the Tigris River and into a parking
lot of the compound housing the headquarters of occupation forces in
Iraq. The attack came just a few hours
after the minister in charge of the police and security said at a news
conference there that the continuing violence
was one reason not to hold elections this year. [Wow,
what an amazing *coincidence*... NOT!]

Rocket
Hits U.S. Compound in Baghdad
A rocket landed Monday night near coalition headquarters in the U.S.-controlled
area of Baghdad known as the "green zone" but 'caused no injuries or
damage' [?!?], the U.S. military said. The rocket fell in an
open parking lot near the Republican Palace used by top U.S. officials
in Iraq, an occupation official said on condition of anonymity.

More
details of Army's abuse probe surface
The U.S. military's criminal investigation into potential abuse of Iraqi
detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Gharib prison in Iraq now includes
reports from soldiers that military police took photographs showing
soldiers hitting detainees, CNN has learned.

Dean:
Iraqi Standard of Living Worse Now
Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean said Sunday that the standard
of living for Iraqis is a "whole lot worse'' since Saddam
Hussein's removal from power in last year's American-led invasion. "You
can say that it's great that Saddam is gone and I'm sure that a lot
of Iraqis feel it is great that Saddam is gone,'' said the former Vermont
governor, an unflinching critic of the war against Iraq. "But a
lot of them gave their lives. And their living standard is a whole lot
worse now than it was before.'' [Also, the living standard of most
Americans is a *whole lot worse* since Bush took [literally, *took*]
office. And what Bob Dylan wrote is true about Bush's occupation of
Iraq: "Yonder stands your orphan with his gun."]

Doing
Business With the Enemy
(cbsnews.com) "Did it ever occur to you that when President [sic]
Bush says, 'Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations,' he's talking
about your money -- and every other American's money? Just about everyone
with a 401(k) pension plan or mutual fund has money invested in companies
that are doing business in so-called rogue states." [So this
means Halliburton is getting paid on both ends of the terrorism W-ar:
for helping finance "terrorism" and helping to fight W-ars
against "terrorism." Halliburton has its hands in the pockets of "rogue"
nations and the US all at the same time. Maybe HALLIBURTON actually
*IS* "Terrorism" itself!!!! Halliburton is making money for fighting
W-ars it first helps to start! Halliburton
*IS* guilty of TREASON!!!!]

Whistleblower
Coming In Cold From the F.B.I.
--by Gail Sheehy --Sibel Edmonds says she was shocked at the lack of
security in the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence squad when she went to
work there shortly after Sept. 11. But when she spoke up, she was canned.
"Last Friday, the four women from New Jersey who have faced down
the F.B.I. on its failures in preventing the terrorist attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, that claimed their husbands’ lives were personally invited
to the bureau’s Hoover Building offices in Washington, D.C., for a second
visit. Their host was none other than F.B.I. director Robert Mueller..."

Budget
analysts see deeper 10-year deficits of $2.4 trillion
The government's budget outlook deteriorated further on Monday as the
Congressional Budget Office projected nearly $2.4
trillion in deficits over the next decade. Along with the
forecast, almost $1 trillion worse than
estimated in August, Congress' nonpartisan fiscal watchdog said
this year's deficit would hit $477 billion. That would be a record in
dollar terms.

US
budget deficit reaches $500bn
The US Federal budget deficit could reach $2.4 trillion over the next
10 years, $1 trillion more than previously
estimated, official estimates said.

Judge
Dismisses U.S. Slave Reparations Lawsuit
A federal judge Monday dismissed a lawsuit demanding reparations from
companies accused of profiting from American slavery, suggesting the
issue belongs in the U.S. Congress and not his courtroom.

Clark
Wins Initial N.H. Primary Votes
Wesley Clark won the initial votes cast Tuesday morning in New Hampshire's
Democratic presidential primary, the first to be counted in a state
primary this year.

Dean
back in dead heat with KerryStatistically,
two are tied in latest MSNBC poll --The three-day rolling average
has Kerry with 28 percent to Dean’s 25 percent in New Hampshire’s Democratic
primary on Tuesday. MSNBC's Felix Schein reports, "The Iowa scream itself
may be playing a part in the rebound" in the polls. "For Deanics around
the Granite State, the footage of Dean's explosion has served as
a rallying cry, producing signs like the ones in Plymouth reading, 'Four
more years of Bush and we’ll all be screaming' or 'Scream
for Dean.' Not only has the rant assumed a cult status
but it has also plastered Dean’s face all over America’s television
screens leading some to resort to the old line that any publicity is
good publicity." [Scream on, Dean! We
are Screaming for you! It's either your scream or the scream of MILLIONS
who suffer and/or die at the hands of the Bush NAZI REGIME!!!]

Conn.
Governor Impeachment Panel Gets Unanimous OK
Connecticut lawmakers voted unanimously on Monday to set up a panel
to investigate whether to launch an impeachment probe of embattled [Republican]
Gov. John Rowland after he accepted gifts and free work from state contractors
and lied about it.

Bush
Brother's Divorce Produces Some Startling DisclosuresMessy divorce has
produced some eye-opening disclosures [that we will not hear about on
Faux News or MoreSh*tNoBrainsCable,
that is for sure]. Among them: Neil Bush had sex with women who
showed up uninvited at his hotel rooms in Asia; he had an affair and
may have fathered a child out of wedlock; and he stands to make millions
from businesses in which he has little expertise - including a computer-chip
company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang
Zemin.

Money
tapes may bury Sharon, says former aide
Israeli police are examining more than 50 hours of potentially explosive
taped conversation between Ariel Sharon and his sons, recorded by a
former close aide, David Spector. Mr Spector said his tapes could be
important evidence in a police investigation into the Israeli Prime
Minister and bring about his downfall.

Beef
industry, federal regulators long ignored warningsMad cow discovery punctures myth of US "firewall" against
disease --by Tom Seabaugh and Jerry Isaacs "Independent scientists
and consumer advocates have long warned that BSE would appear in the
US. The giant agribusinesses that dominate the industry and their political
representatives in Washington... have repeatedly resisted measures that
could protect the public, including those that have substantially reduced
the incidence of the disease in Britain and much of Europe since being
instituted after the outbreak of the 1980s."

Parrot's
oratory stuns scientists
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate
with people has brought scientists up short. The bird, a captive African
grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows
signs of a sense of humour. [950 words? That's a several hundred
word advantage over that of the Idiot Usurper's knowledge base.]

US
must quit Iraq before vote, say Sunnis
An influential Sunni Muslim group in Iraq said yesterday it was opposed
to partial elections scheduled for the summer and wanted a vote taken
only when American
forces had left the country.

Dean:
Iraqi Standard of Living Worse Now
Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean said Sunday that the standard
of living for Iraqis is a "whole lot worse'' since Saddam
Hussein's removal from power in last year's American-led invasion. "You
can say that it's great that Saddam is gone and I'm sure that a lot
of Iraqis feel it is great that Saddam is gone,'' said the former Vermont
governor, an unflinching critic of the war against Iraq. "But a
lot of them gave their lives. And their living standard is a whole lot
worse now than it was before.'' [Also, the living standard of most
Americans is a *whole lot worse* since Bush took [literally, *took*]
office. And what Bob Dylan wrote is true about Bush's occupation of
Iraq: "He understands your orphan with his gun."]

Kucinich:
Iraq Policy Will Lead to Draft
America's policy in Iraq will lead to a resumption of the military draft,
Democrat Dennis Kucinich told high school and college students Saturday.
"The body count keeps rising,'' Kucinich said, pointing
to reports of more deaths in Iraq.

Kerry:
Bush Rush to War Ignores Vietnam
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says Dictator Bush has
breached a faith to keep young people from dying needlessly in combat,
which he said was a lesson from the Vietnam War.

Kay:
Lack of Iraqi WMD Requires ReviewU.S.
intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated
Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion,
says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein
had no such arms. "I don't think they exist," David Kay said Sunday.
"The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist — we've got
to deal with that difference and understand why." [NO!
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-and the PNAC crew need to explain why they LIED
to the American people in order to carry out an illegal and immoral
war for Halliburton and Bechtel!]

Kay
Asks Why U.S. Thought Iraq Had WMD
U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated
Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says
the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had
no such arms.

Kay
Doubts Presence of Illicit Iraq Arms
The outgoing chief U.S. weapons inspector says his inability to find
illicit arms in Iraq raises serious questions about American intelligence-gathering.
[We need to raise 'serious questions' as to why Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rove
have not yet been tried for treason.]

Democrats
Call for Probe of Iraq Weapons Claims
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry said on Sunday the
Bush dictatorship, including Vice pResident
Dick Cheney, should be "held accountable" for claims Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction.

Spy
chiefs warn PM: don't blame us for war
British intelligence chiefs launched a pre-emptive strike against Poodle
Tony Blair last night, ahead of the publication of the Hutton report,
and blamed the government for pressurising them into cherry-picking
intelligence to justify the war on Iraq.

Blair
defiant over WMDs as aides face Hutton censure
At least nine people - six associated with Poodle Tony Blair's government
and three from the BBC - could be in the firing line when Lord
Hutton delivers his much-anticipated report into the death of David
Kelly on Wednesday.

Blair
Faces Major Test in Iraq Arms Probe
Prime Minister Poodle Tony Blair faces a crucial judgment next week
in a political and personal drama that goes to the heart of the debate
about whether he hyped the case for war in Iraq.

Blair
stares into abyss
Chancellor challenged to save PM in fees fight --Poodle Tony Blair was
last night battling to save his premiership from the abyss on
tuition fees with more concessions due to be announced to MPs today,
and a minister calling on the chancellor to warn rebels they would not
be given ministerial office in a future Brown administration.

Paranoid
Poodle:Blair
feared Chirac was "out to get him" before Iraq war Poodle Tony
Blair believed that Jacques Chirac was "out to get him" ahead of the
Iraq war, because the French leader feared Britain's prime minister
was usurping his own position as the natural leader of Europe, the Financial
Times (FT) newspaper reported.

As
with the United States, Iraq wants direct elections, Bush does not:Delays
and Split on Iraqi Council Imperil U.S. Plan A powerful cleric's
demand for quick elections has delayed the drafting of an interim constitution
and created a serious new split in the Iraqi Governing Council, officials
said Sunday, further undermining the Bush dictatorship's troubled
plan for a political transition in Iraq. [Wasn't one of the mega-lies
that Bush espoused to justify the Halliburton oil grab, was that the
U.S. wanted to 'bring democracy' to the people of Iraq?]

Iraqi
Melting Pot Nears Boiling PointIn oil-rich Kirkuk, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens compete for a place
in the new order. This fabled city of muddy streets and hidden guns,
where one person's folklore is another's atrocity, has U.S. officials
concerned that ethnic tensions could ignite a civil war and spoil plans
for a unified Iraq.

U.S.
Loses Fifth Copter This Month in Iraq
The U.S. military lost its fifth helicopter this month in Iraq, which
crashed in the Tigris river while searching for a soldier whose boat
had capsized. The aircraft's two crew members and the soldier remained
missing Monday.

Army
Copter With 2 Pilots Crashes in Iraq
A U.S. military helicopter crashed Sunday in the Tigris River in the
northern town of Mosul while searching for a soldier, and both crewmembers
were missing, a spokeswoman said.

The
US is now in the hands of a group of extremistsFundamentalism
has spawned an ideology of American supremacy --by George Soros
"The ideologues of American supremacy and President [sic] Bush
personally never cease to remind us that September 11 changed the world.
It is only as the untoward consequences of the invasion of Iraq become
apparent that people are beginning to realise something has gone woefully
wrong... When he stood for election in 2000, President [sic] Bush promised
a humble foreign policy. I contend that the Bush administration has
deliberately exploited September 11 to pursue policies that the American
public would not have otherwise tolerated."

Venezuela
Upbraids U.S. Over Terrorism Complaint
Venezuela Sunday rejected U.S. complaints that it was not doing enough
to fight terrorism and said Washington should set an example by bringing
to justice "terrorist" foes of President Hugo Chavez who are seeking
U.S. asylum.

New
federal air passenger screening program set to start this summer
Northwest Airlines and every other U.S. airline soon will be required
to send the names and travel plans of all their customers to the federal
government as part of a massive computerized screening program designed
to identify potential 'terrorists' before they board an airplane.

Give
9/11 Panel More Time
(Los Angeles Times) "The administration, which initially opposed
the commission's creation but then endorsed it, has hampered its
research and insists on shortening its life span from 24 months,
as originally proposed by Congress, to 18 months. This timetable raises
questions of cynical political calculation — whether the administration
really wants to know what went awry in the past to fix it or whether
it just wants to get any damaging revelations out well before the fall
presidential campaign heats up... The commission only recently received
copies of the 'president[sic]'s daily brief,' crafted by the CIA. These
files could reveal whether President [sic] Bush had been warned before
9/11 of the possibility of terrorist attacks using commercial planes."

AWOL?
Deserter? Bring It On!Either
Way, Lt. George W. Bush Abandoned His Nation and Dishonored His Flight
Suit. Either Way, This is a Fight Democrats Should Fight - and Win.
--by Bob Fertik "Despite the evidence, George W. Bush insists that
he did perform his required drills at a base in Alabama in the fall
of 1972, and then performed additional drills back in Texas in the spring
of 1973. But the documents show otherwise, and Bush's commanding officers
in both Alabama and Texas say they never saw Bush during those two years,
as Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe first reported on May
23, 2000."

[Reichwing
Puke]Dennis
Miller to Give Bush a Free Pass[GOP whore] Dennis Miller
has usually been happy to spray his acerbic wit across the political
spectrum, but things will be different on his new CNBC talk program.
President [sic] Bush is in a mock-free zone. "I like him," Miller explained.
"I'm going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends." [Now *there's*
a real journalist... NOT!]

Bush,
Congress Face Historic Deficits Federal deficits are setting
records as Dictator Bush and Congress plunge into the election year's
budget work and both parties wonder if the red ink will prove to be
a campaign issue.

Dr.
Bill Frist, Moral Monster: He'd Do Anything for Pussy
--by Alexander Cockburn (December 31, 2002) "As for Bill Frist
[the sick-o Senate Majority 'Leader'], the millionaire Tennessee sawbones,
everything you need to know about this unpleasing man was contained
in one short paragraph of a profile of Frist by Michael Kranish in the
Boston Globe Sunday magazine for October 27, 2002, covering the years
when Frist was in Boston, first at Harvard Medical School and then at
Mass General. 'Frist is an animal lover who said his decision to become
a doctor was clinched when he helped heal a friend's dog. But Frist
now found himself forced to kill animals during medical research. And
his new dilemma was finding enough animals to kill. Soon, he began lying
to obtain more animals. He went to the animal
shelters around Boston and promised he would care for the cats as pets.
Then he killed them during experiments. 'It was a heinous and
dishonest thing to do,' Frist wrote. 'I was going a little crazy.''
So now the US senate is going to be led by the cat world's answer to
Dr Mengele!"

Bush
Seeking to Limit Malpractice Awards
Dictator Bush is trying to resuscitate a measure to place nationwide
caps on medical malpractice awards, a move he has made a centerpiece
of his s-election-year
focus on health care [?????]. Senate Democrats stalled the bill
last year, arguing it would help the insurance
industry [one of Bush's paymasters], not patients.

Polls:
Clark Has Slim Lead in Oklahoma
Several leading Democratic presidential candidates are fighting for
the top position in Arizona, Oklahoma and South Carolina, according
to polls done in those states with Feb. 3 primaries.

New
WMD blow for Tony Blair
Britain 's opposition Conservatives called on Saturday for a public
inquiry about the British decision to join the war on Iraq following
the resignation of the top US official charged with tracking down Iraq
's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

War
crimes trial for Hussein could reveal details of past U.S. help
Saddam Hussein's loyalists may not be the only ones edgy about the prospect
of a war crimes trial for the former Iraqi leader. Vexing questions
also could surface about how much the United States helped Iraq during
its eight-year war with Iran -- and whether it tried to stop Iraqi atrocities

'It's
just wrong what we're doing'
In an exclusive interview, repentant Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara
breaks his silence on Iraq: The United States, he says, is making the
same mistakes all over again. --by Doug Saunders

Democrat
Edwards Wants Iraq War Case Investigation
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards called on Saturday for
an independent commission to investigate if the Bush dictatorship
misled the U.S. Congress in making its case for war with Iraq and
demanded an end to war profiteering. He said Halliburton Co.
and others who had secured contracts to rebuild Iraq were major Bush
political contributors.

Ex-U.N.
arms expert to head U.S. hunt in Iraq
Charles Duelfer has been named by the CIA to lead the U.S. team hunting
for unconventional weapons in Iraq. Despite the many reports he had
written for the United Nations on Iraq's arms, Duelfer recently expressed
doubts unconventional weapons will ever be found. "I think that Mr.
Kay and his team have looked very hard. I think the reason that they
haven't found them is they're probably not there," he told NBC on
Jan. 8.

U.S.
Soldier Dies in Iraq Grenade Attack
Resistance fighters fired a rocket propelled grenade at a Bradley fighting
vehicle that was on patrol in central Iraq, killing a U.S. soldier,
a military spokeswoman said Sunday.

5
G.I.'s Are Killed in a Wave of Violence
Resistance fighters in Iraq killed or wounded scores of people in several
attacks on Saturday, including two American soldiers who were killed
by a makeshift bomb on a road near Falluja and three more who died in
a truck-bomb attack in Khaldiya, military officials said.

Iraq
Blasts Kill Five U.S. Troops, Four Iraqis
A car bomb exploded at the entrance to an American military base in
Iraq on Saturday, killing three U.S. soldiers just hours after separate
blasts elsewhere left two servicemen and at least four Iraqis dead.

Iraq
Blasts Kill Four Iraqis, Two U.S. Soldiers
A bomb exploded under a car on Saturday in the heart of the volatile
Iraqi town of Samarra, killing four Iraqis and wounding dozens, while
a separate bomb attack on a U.S. convoy killed two soldiers.

Stress
epidemic strikes American forces in Iraq
The war's over, but the suicide rate is high and the army is riddled
with acute psychiatric problems. Up to one in five of the American military
personnel in Iraq will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, say
senior forces' medical staff dealing with the psychiatric fallout of
the war.

Cheney:
Direct threats require 'decisive action'Says nations must be prepared to use force if diplomacy fails
--Democratic nations must join together to fight 'terrorism' and the
spread of the world’s most dangerous weapons, but if diplomacy fails,
they must be prepared to use force, Vice pResident
Dick Cheney said Saturday. [An effective 'decisive action' might
be putting the Bush junta on trial for treason.]

Cheney
Dodges Question of U.S. As Empire
Asked on Saturday whether he considered the United States to be an empire,
Vice pResident Dick Cheney had the
perfect dodge: Ask my wife. Lynne Cheney was responsible, the vice pResident
said, for the quote from Benjamin Franklin on the family Christmas card:
"If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable
that an empire can rise without His aid?"

'Christian
Terrorists'Anti-Abortionist
Calls for Violence, Says It Is Religious Duty --An anti-abortion
activist, calling for a new wave of violence against clinics and doctors,
is following the example of violent Islamic fundamentalists, telling
those who share his views to become "Christian
terrorists" and promising them a reward in Heaven. [One
person's 'terrorist' is another person's freedom fighter. Some people
may think it is time to become 'anti-coup terrorists'
and leave NO Diebold machine standing
for the 2004 s-election as it is their
*religious duty* to protect the planet from another stolen election
and four more years of George W. Bush's international terrorism.]

Bush
'stole' the presidential election: Cherie Blair
In a forthright view that is likely to embarrass her husband, Cherie
Blair, wife of Prime Minister Poodle Tony Blair, is reported to have
observed that George W Bush "stole"
the US presidential election from Al Gore. "Cherie Blair still believed
that Bush had stolen the White House from Gore," author Philip
Stephens wrote in his book "Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader."

Dean
Says His White House Bid Is on Comeback Trail
Democratic White House hopeful Howard Dean said on Saturday his embattled
campaign was moving in the right direction despite the obsession with
his televised outburst in Iowa and "under-the-table" tactics in the
state's caucuses.

Kay
Resigns, Contradicts Bush on Weapons
David Kay stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons
in Iraq on Friday, and fired a parting shot at the Bush dictatorship,
while pressure mounted on Washington to hold early direct elections
in Iraq.

The
CIA revolt against the White HouseFormer
intelligence official Larry C. Johnson blasts the Bush administration's
"outright pattern of bullying." --by
Mark Follman "...[F]or almost a year, the White House has been
quietly
fighting a contentious battle at home on the national security front
-- against the U.S. intelligence community itself. Vocal retired intelligence
officials, and anonymous active ones, have protested repeatedly that
the White House has coerced intelligence agencies to rig findings
and analysis to suit administration aims... The latest salvo was
launched this week when a group of respected former CIA officials, led
by decorated analyst Larry C. Johnson, sent a letter to Republican Speaker
of the House Dennis Hastert demanding that Congress hold the White
House accountable for deliberately revealing the identity of undercover
CIA operative Valerie Plame." [registration required]

Ex-CIA
Officers Ask Congress to Probe Plame Leak
A group of former CIA staffers is pushing for a congressional investigation
into the "shameful" leaking of the
name of undercover officer Valerie Plame, whose husband cast doubt on
the Bush regime's claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Helicopter
crashes in Iraq; 2 pilots dead
A U.S. Army OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter attached to the 101st Airborne
Division crashed Friday in northern Iraq, killing the two pilots, the
U.S. military said.

Iraq
women gunned down
Four Iraqi women who worked for the US army have been killed in a gun
attack on their minibus. Police said several other women were wounded
in Wednesday's attack near the town of Falluja, about 50 kilometres
(32 miles) west of the capital Baghdad.

Halliburton
Repays Government $6.3MPayment
Covers Alleged Kickbacks to Employees Working in Iraq --Halliburton
Co. said today that it has repaid the government $6.3
million to cover potential overcharging for work in Iraq
related to possible kickbacks to fired employees.

Halliburton
audit finds possible problemsInternal
probe unveils potential overbilling in Pentagon contract --At least
one, perhaps two former Halliburton Co.
employees may have accepted improper payments from a Kuwaiti subcontractor
providing support for the U.S. military, as part of an alleged scheme
to overcharge the Pentagon by some $6 million.

Report:
Halliburton staff took kickbacks
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Halliburton
Co. has told the Pentagon that two employees pocketed up
to $6 million in kickbacks for awarding
a Kuwaiti-based company with work supplying U.S. troops in Iraq.

Judge
raises award in suit against Halliburton, Ramco
A judge has tacked on an additional $35.6 million
to an existing judgment against Houston-based Halliburton
Energy Services Inc., Scotland-based Ramco Energy Plc, and
Ramco Oil Ltd. for violating confidentiality contracts over the development
of an oil field in Kazakhstan.

Halliburton
Corruption in Nigeria Reaches Washington In Paris, a French
judge has reportedly warned that Vice pResident Dick Cheney could
be charged over allegations that his former company, Halliburton,
paid $180 million in bribes to build
a Nigerian gas plant. Other allegations are abundant: Nigerian prosecutors
also have been investigating a disclosure by Halliburton
that an official of Kellogg Brown & Root
allegedly paid $2.4 million to a Nigerian
official in 2001 in return for lower taxes...

Arabs
slam U.S. over democracy
Arab and Muslim leaders have slammed the United States' campaign for
democracy in the Middle East as hypocritical, saying Washington should
first end its "double standards" in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

When
was Bush transformed into the see-no-evil president [sic]?
--by Elizabeth Sullivan "Tuesday night, President [sic] Bush recast
the Iraq war as a 'liberation.' Last year at this time, he was selling
it as a national security mission critical to U.S. safety... [W]hen
U.N. weapons inspectors busted up Saddam's nuclear program in the early
1990s, they found one uranium enrichment plant built to the precise
design of a previously discarded U.S. weapons-lab blueprint... An
Iraqi microbiologist who trained at the U.S. government's
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1985 openly carried
bio-bugs back with him, including denatured plague strains and the West
Nile virus.

Wars
'useful', says US army chief
The head of the United States army has said that the conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan have provided a "tremendous focus" for the military.
'Silver lining' --General Schoomaker
said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events
had given the US army a rare opportunity to change. "There
is a huge silver lining in this cloud," he said. "War
is a tremendous focus... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and
we have the fact that [Bush family bushiness partner, Osama bin Laden,
and al-Qaida] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some
oomph." He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but
train. "There's got to be a certain appetite for what the hell we
exist for," he said.

Bush
to Seek $401.7B Pentagon Budget
Dictator Bush will ask Congress to approve $401.7
billion in defense spending for the budget year that begins
in October, a 7 percent increase over this year, the Pentagon announced
Friday. [After the 2004 coup d'etat, Bush will then seek
an additional $40 billion dollars for Halliburton
['Iraq and Afghanistan'].]

Military
train derails near Charleston
An accident Thursday night in a CSX Transportation train yard north
of Charleston, S.C., resulted in the derailment of 13 train cars, including
three that were carrying military ammunition.

Study
finds link between Agent Orange, cancer
Military concedes toxic chemical increases risk of illness --Air Force
veterans who were exposed to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange during
the Vietnam War have an increased risk of prostate and skin cancer,
military researchers [finally] reported.

Holy
may God strike him dead if he is lying, Batman!Ashcroft
Says U.S. Not Greedy for Empire U.S. Attorney General [and terrorist
nutball] John Ashcroft denied Friday Washington was greedy
for empire and stressed it needed partners to prevail in
the war on terror.

Paranoid
shift
--by Michael Hasty "In his book, 'Rogue State: A Guide to the World's
Only Superpower,' William Blum warns of how the media will make anything
that smacks of 'conspiracy theory' an immediate 'object of ridicule.'
This prevents the media from ever having to investigate the many
strange interconnections among the ruling class—for example, the
relationship between the boards of directors of media giants, and the
energy, banking and defense industries. These unmentionable topics are
usually treated with what Blum calls 'the media's most effective tool—silence.'
But in case somebody's asking questions, all you have to do is say,
'conspiracy theory,' and any allegation instantly becomes too frivolous
to merit serious attention."

Whore
Court Questioned On Allowing Scalia Trip
Two top Senate Democrats challenged Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
yesterday to explain the Supreme Court procedures that permitted Justice
Antonin Scalia to spend several days recently duck hunting with Vice
pResident Cheney, who is a named
party in a case pending before the Whore Court.

Rehnquist
questioned on Cheney-Scalia trip
Two leading Democratic senators asked Chief Justice William Rehnquist
on Thursday about the propriety of a hunting trip Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia took with Vice pResident
Dick Cheney while Cheney has a case pending before the high court.

Dick
Cheney Kills Birds DeadThe
manly veep has himself a lazy, "canned" pheasant slaughter, and we are
so impressed --by Mark Morford "Dick and about nine other overfed
white guys sitting in a comfy luxury blind with their manly shotguns,
waiting for the Westmoreland guy stationed behind them on a hill to
release clusters of stunned, fat, tame game birds from a net. Then they
shoot them... This is yet another perfect example of the American agenda
as set forth by the CheneyRumsfeldRove Triumvirate o' Pain, very much
the way this administration attacks the world. No competition. No sportsmanship.
No fairness. Zero respect. No reverence. And no actual talent required.
Just kill at will."

Diebold
Gets Stay in California
Delay was the order of the day in California Thursday as the secretary
of state's Voting Systems Panel, or VSP, postponed announcing any sanctions
against Diebold [S-]Election
Systems.

Making
Votes CountThe
Perils of Online Voting (The New York Times) "Four computer
scientists brought in by the Pentagon to analyze a plan for Internet
voting by the military issued a blistering report this week, concluding
that the program should be halted. These four are the only members of
a 10-member advisory committee to issue a report on the program. Their
findings make it clear that the potential for hackers to steal votes
or otherwise subvert elections electronically is too high. Congress
should suspend the program."

Top
accountant facing 6 charges
The former chief accounting officer of Enron was indicted yesterday
on six felony charges that accuse him of participating in a multi-year
effort to disguise the company's collapsing financial performance.

Prosecutors
decline Rush Limbaugh's plea offer
Prosecutors rejected a deal Rush Limbaugh's attorney suggested that
would have seen the conservative radio commentator enter a drug intervention
program rather than face charges for illegally obtaining prescription
painkillers, records show.

Chemical
Industry Given Private Access to EPA; Seeks Approval of Pesticides at
Expense of Wildlife
(bushgreenwatch.org) "A lawsuit filed last week asserts that the
Bush Administration is allowing a special task force from the chemical
industry to lobby secretly and illegally inside the Environmental Protection
Agency. The task force aims to circumvent current protections for endangered
species. If successful, it will be easier for the industry to gain approval
for the use of certain pesticides."

Mad
Cow Probe Spreads to Seventh Facility
The investigation into mad cow disease spread to a farm in central Washington
state, the seventh facility linked to an infected Holstein, agriculture
officials said Friday.

USDA
Finds Herdmates of Mad Cow Animal in Idaho
Animal health officials investigating the first U.S. case of mad cow
disease have identified three animals in Idaho that were herdmates of
the infected dairy cow in Washington state, the U.S. Agriculture Department
said on Friday.

Ehrlich
Cuts Funding for Bay, Disabled Programs
A $23.8 billion spending plan Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R-of
course) released yesterday provides no aid to two groups long supported
by the state: the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Maryland Education Program
and Best Buddies International, a mentoring program for the developmentally
disabled run by Anthony Shriver, a son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

State
must push to get cheaper prescription drugsWhat We Pay Compared to Canada Is Outrageous (The Mercury News)
"California taxpayers should be outraged about the premium the
state pays for prescription drugs in comparison to Canadians.. [T]he
state is projecting that it will pay nearly $4
billion to U.S. pharmaceutical companies for prescription
drugs for its Medi-Cal program. Yet Canadians who buy their prescription
drugs from the very same pharmaceutical companies pay 40 percent
less than Californians."

The
Other America
--by Bob Herbert "Either the president [sic] doesn't get it, or
he is deliberately ignoring the hard times that have enveloped millions
of Americans on his watch... The interests of the great corporations
and the wealthy, privileged classes are not the same as those of American
working families. And because the power of government has shifted so
radically in favor of the interests of the former, there is little left
but indifference to the needs and aspirations of the latter, who just
happen to be the vast majority of Americans.

We
May Have Dean to Kick Around
--by David Greenberg "When I first saw the snippets of [Democratic
candidate Dr. Howard] Dean's Monday night speech, they struck me as
little more than the fiery rallying cry of an exhausted, hoarse campaigner
trying to keep disappointment from sapping his troops... What had been
a relatively innocuous, if slightly goofy, speech has metamorphosed
into a real threat to his prospects, as late-night comedians drill home
the image of a deranged Dean. Perhaps the propensity toward hysteria
and overheated rhetoric belongs to the media, not to Dean."

Dean
Getting Second Look From N.H.
Interviews with nearly two dozen undecided voters Friday suggest that
Dr. Howard Dean's political makeover could at least stop his dip in
popularity due to his Iowa speech. Dean drew enormous crowds all day
— 1,500 on Friday in Keene, N. H. , where he said, "Wow, I hope there
are some undecideds out there so we can sway them."

Will
Bush play the bioterror card?
--by Lori R. Price "There is no way on God's green earth that Karl
Rove will let the Idiot Usurper debate *any* Democratic candidate three
nights in a row on national television, and Rove can't 'Wellstone' all
of them... Even a staged bin Laden 'capture' may not be enough. Bush
needs to turn to something that would grab a little more attention and
insure the desired clampdown, just in time for the 2004 s-election."

Legislating
the next coup d'etat:House
panel prepares House for catastrophic attack
A House committee recommended legislation Wednesday that would provide
for fast special elections[???!!!]
if a terrorist attack killed or incapacitated many House members. ['fast
special elections' is a codeword for coup d'etat.]

9-11
is no reason to suspend the Constitution --by Floyd J. McKay
"Bush has used 9-11 to set himself above
the law. Unlike World War II or other declared wars, this
is a 'war' without end. What president [sic] is going to declare
'Mission Accomplished' on the deck of the USS Lincoln, only to have
some loony set off a bomb in the subway? Not likely — we will be fighting
a war on terrorism for the rest of our natural lives. What does this
mean for the Constitution, then? Does it mean more secret arrests and
detentions, the sealing of court records and closing of trials?"

9/11
is low on White House priority list
(The Palm Beach Post) "...[Dictator] Bush shouldn't get to sabotage
a more important review of his administration's actions and inactions
leading up to Sept. 11, 2001.The bipartisan panel investigating the
attacks won't be finished by the May 27 deadline. The Bush administration's
refusal to cooperate with the panel is the primary reason that it
won't be ready to produce a comprehensive report... President [sic]
Bush must be afraid that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States will produce a report showing that he ignored
warnings of an Al-Qaeda strike -- and possibly specific warnings about
using hijacked airplanes as missiles."

New
Egyptian Hit Song Blames US for 9/11
The song blames America itself for the terrorist attacks against the
World Trade Center: "Hey people, it was only a tower, and I swear
by God that they are the ones who pulled it down."

Powell
Rebukes Dems for Criticizing Bush
Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday criticized Democratic presidential
candidates for saying "ridiculous, outrageous and irresponsible" things
about Dictator Bush. Powell said it was "just awful" and "total absurdity"
for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to speak openly about theories that
suggest Bush was warned in advance about the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. [Hmmm... looks like
Dr. Dean hit a sore spot with the Bush dictatorship,<g>. 'Warned
in advance' is just the tip of the sad and sorry iceberg of Bush lies.
Could this be the reason why the Rove media is now attempting to destroy
Howard Dean?]

Infiltration
of files seen as extensiveSenate
panel's GOP staff spied on Democrats --Republican
staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition
computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically
passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
For Democrats, the scandal highlights GOP dirty
tricks that could result in ethics complaints to the Senate
and the Washington Bar -- or even criminal charges under computer intrusion
laws.

Federal
Database a Trove of Personal Info
A federally funded crime database run by seven states is looking increasingly
to privacy advocates like a potent substitute for the data-mining program
the Pentagon scrapped after public rebuke.

Vets
want proof of Bush service
Ten Jefferson County Vietnam veterans are offering $1,000 to anyone
with proof that Texas Gov. George W. Bush actually served in the Alabama
National Guard.

10
killed in Iraq attacks
Two US soldiers, two Iraqi policemen and six civilians, including four
women working for the US military, were killed in separate attacks near
Baghdad, police and military sources said yesterday.

Two
U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq mortar attack
Resistance fighters kill 4 women, 2 Iraqi police in separate incidents
--A barrage of mortar fire struck a U.S. military encampment in central
Iraq, killing two American soldiers and critically wounding a third,
the military said Thursday.

Grand
Jury Hears Plame CaseTestimony
begins in front of a grand jury in the investigation into whether the
identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame was improperly leaked to the
press --Sources with knowledge of the case tell TIME that behind
closed doors at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse, nearby
the Capitol, a grand jury began hearing testimony Wednesday in the investigation
of who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to columnist
Robert Novak and other journalists.

Ex-C.I.A.
Aides Ask for Leak Inquiry by Congress
A group of former intelligence officers is pressing Congressional leaders
to open an immediate inquiry into the disclosure last summer of the
name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame.

Report:
Rumsfeld considers striking Hizbullah to provoke
Syria
US Secretary of Defense [terrorist nutball, actually] Donald Rumsfeld
is considering provoking a military confrontation with Syria
by attacking Hizbullah bases near the Syrian border in Lebanon, according
to the authoritative London-based Jane's Intelligence Digest. In an
article to be published on Friday, the journal said multi-faceted US
attacks, which would be conducted within the framework of the 'global
war on terrorism', are likely to focus on Hizbullah bases
in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon.

Guard
survey hints at exodusRe-enlistments may dip with longer tours --Just as the Pentagon
is increasingly relying on the National Guard and other part-time troops
for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, an internal Guard survey suggests
that the demanding deployments could prompt a significant number of
its soldiers to quit the military.

Gulf
War Syndrome action demanded
A call for action for those suffering from so-called Gulf War Syndrome
is due to be made in the House of Lords. Lord Morris of Manchester will
demand the government responds to a coroner's ruling that an ex-soldier's
death was linked to his service in the 1991 war.

I
would be suicide bomber in Israel, says Lib Dem MP
A senior MP provoked anger last night after claiming that she would
consider becoming a suicide bomber if she was living in conditions faced
by the Palestinians. Dr Jenny Tonge, the former Liberal Democrat spokeswoman
on international development, said that she did not condone the Palestinian
bombers, but said she could "understand" their actions.

$328-Billion
Spending Bill Approved
Congress today sent Dictator Bush a $328-billion spending bill that
clears the way for new rules dealing with gun purchases, media ownership
and overtime pay. The bill allows the regime to move
ahead with controversial rules limiting overtime pay, lets
big media companies buy more TV stations and delays
implementation of country-of-origin food labeling. "We
can drive a vehicle on the surface of Mars and we cannot put labels
on meat?" said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who held up a package
of steak on the Senate floor. "Total nonsense."

President
[sic] Bush Falls Off Mark With Speech
--by Calvin Woodward "President [sic] Bush declared 'jobs are on
the rise' — literally true, but listlessly so. His report on the death
of the 'death tax' was a bit premature. His account of Afghanistan moving
toward freedom and normalcy is challenged by some of the realities on
the ground. Bush's State of the Union speech Tuesday was notably cautious
in comparison with the one last year, when he made claims about Iraq
that didn't stand up."

Bush
act starts to wear thin
--by Haroon Siddiqui "Even allowing for his domestic needs in an
election year, it [George W. Bush's State of the disUnion
speech] was riddled with disingenuous, at times dishonest, formulations
as well as logical inconsistencies... He [Bush] is weak on the domestic
front — a jobless economic recovery that may not last until the fall.
He has little choice but to keep exploiting fear and pose as the war
president [sic] with the mantra of battling 'terror,' 'terrorism' and
'terrorists.' But the act is wearing thin and he will increasingly be
seen as a one-trick pony."

Reagan's
Son to Pen Anti-Bush Editorial
Ron Reagan, son of the former president of the United States, is set
to write an editorial piece for Esquire magazine urging the end of the
Bush dictatorship.

Prevent
future election debacles in FloridaOur opinion: Add paper trail of votes to electronic voting process
(The Miami Herald) "The ritzy voting systems installed in Florida
in the aftermath of the 2000 election debacle [coup d'etat] are
extremely accurate, but they lack a vital safeguard to guarantee that
every voter's choices are counted and verified. They don't make a paper
record of all votes cast, a crucial document for recounts... U.S. Sen.
Bob Graham last month introduced a bill that would require a paper record
of votes. Florida officials shouldn't wait for the outcome of this legislation,
however, before initiating steps to create a paper trail for every election
here."

Party
faithful seen focused on electability
More than 122,000 Democrats attended
the Iowa caucuses Monday, of which roughly 45 percent were first-time
participants, according to entrance polls. Iowa Democrats drew criticism
in 2000 after results were slow and turnout in the two-candidate race
was low at roughly 61,000. [Rove,
take note: Bush hatred is a tremendous motivating factor in increasing
voter registration/turnout in 2004. It's gonna' take a lot more energy
for the Bush junta to reinstall itself in the second coup d'etat.]

Kucinich:
'Hello, Bath!'Democratic
presidential hopeful lays out his vision for America before 400 enthusiastic
listeners (ME) If you think Dennis Kucinich's campaign for president
of the United States is not serious, try explaining that to the more
than 400 people who overflowed the sanctuary of the United Church of
Christ Congregational on Congress Street Wednesday evening to listen
to Kucinich speak.

Delaware
Gov. Eyes Insurance for All Cancer Victims The governor of Delaware,
which ranks sixth in the nation in cancer death rates, on Thursday proposed
guaranteeing health insurance for every state resident stricken with
the disease. "Some will say 'no other state has done it.' To them I
say, it's about time that someone did, and Delaware will lead the way,"
[Democratic] Gov. Ruth Ann Minner
said.

Janklow
Draws 100-Day Jail Sentence
[Republican] Bill Janklow, who dominated
South Dakota politics for three decades as governor and then congressman,
was sentenced to 100 days in jail [OMG, that's all ?!?] Thursday
for an auto accident that killed a motorcyclist and ended Janklow's
career in disgrace.

Ex-Rep.
Janklow Sentenced to 100 Days in Fatal Crash
Former South Dakota Rep. Bill Janklow, convicted of speeding through
a stop sign and killing a motorcyclist, was sentenced on Thursday to
100 days in jail, avoiding a potentially lengthy prison term.
Judge Rodney Steele of the Moody County Circuit Court ruled Janklow
should serve the first 30 days of his 100-day sentence in jail then
begin a daytime work release program, which Steele said he hoped the
former governor would use to teach. [Teach *what?* How Republican
government officials get away with MURDER???]

Janklow
gets [100 days] jail time, fine, 3 years probation
Bill Janklow, a [Reichwing] law-and-order politician known for
his no-nonsense approach to crime and public policy, will spend 100
days in jail as punishment for the death of Randy Scott. The sentence
is a fraction of the 10 years he might have received as a prison term
for the second-degree manslaughter conviction a Moody County jury saddled
him with Dec. 8. Under Circuit Judge Rodney Steele's ruling Thursday,
Janklow also will have his record cleared of the felony if he
meets other conditions for good behavior.

ICC
to Get Evidence of Illegality of War
A strong case arguing the illegality of the
invasion of Iraq will be handed soon to the International
Criminal Court at The Hague. The report prepared by eight leading international
lawyers and professors of law drawn from four countries makes a strong
case against the illegality of the way British and U.S. troops fought
the war.

UK
cluster bombs may be war crime
British use of cluster bombs in the Iraq war could count as a war crime
and justifies further investigation
by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in the Hague, a
group of international lawyers say.

Blair:
'No doubt' Iraq had WMD
British Prime Minister Poodle Tony Blair Wednesday deflected a call
for an independent inquiry into his country's role in the Iraq war,
saying there was "absolutely no doubt" about the existence of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. In a parliament session, Liberal Democrat
leader Charles Kennedy dismissed Dictator Bush's State of disUnion
remarks about Iraq as "rhetoric" and called
for an independent inquiry "into the entire basis on which
this country (Britain) was taken into that war in Iraq."

Families'
Threat To Sue Hoon
Geoff Hoon could be sued by the families of soldiers killed in friendly
fire incidents in Iraq. The Defence Secretary pledged a fully integrated
defence system to prevent the attacks. He admitted later that the equipment
was not in place in time.

U.S.
made Iraq a hotbed of terrorism: Russia
In its most damning indictment of the U.S war in Iraq yet, Russia accused
the U.S. of putting Iraq on the brink of disintegration and turning
it into a hotbed of terrorism
and instability that may fuse with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Iraqis
Want U.N. Verdict on Feasibility of Elections
Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is
likely to drop his demand for early elections if the United Nations
concludes they would not be feasible, a Shi'ite political leader said
on Wednesday.

Bush
may seek billions for Iraq after s-election
Dictator George W. Bush may seek an additional $40
billion or more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
next year -- on top of the $400 billion military budget he will send
to Congress next month, congressional sources and budget analysts said
on Wednesday. But Bush is unlikely to send the request to Congress
until after the November presidential s-election,
minimizing any political damage, the
sources said.

Japanese
leader under fire over troops for Iraq
Japan's main opposition leader yesterday called for the prime minister,
Junichiro Koizumi, to resign during a heated parliamentary debate on
the deployment of Japanese ground troops to Iraq.

Suffer
the French SchoolchildrenHatred
Bush Hath Wrought --by Ted Rall "The European media has covered
a different war than the one you've seen on CNN and Fox News. A 14-year-old
Iraqi boy, shot by U.S. troops in Baghdad, was interviewed for five
minutes on the evening news.'They did it on purpose,' he said. 'They
were laughing.' The bloody corpses of Iraqi civilians are standard TV
fare here. The Bush Administration is routinely portrayed as greedy,
stupid and mean." [In other words, the European media provides
accurate broadcasts.]

Military
Lawyer Slams U.S. Terrorism Tribunals
The U.S. Marine Corps lawyer assigned to defend an Australian terror
suspect being held at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba Wednesday criticized
the military tribunal process and said it will not allow a fair trial.

GOP
students launch complaint Web site Republican students at the
University of Colorado launched a Web site to gather
complaints about left-leaning faculty members, saying they
want to document discrimination against conservative students and indoctrination
to the liberal viewpoint. [Document *this.*]

New
evidence halts 9/11 verdict
A German court has agreed to allow a new prosecution witness in the
trial of an 11 September suspect which appeared to have all but crumbled
last month. The dramatic move has delayed the verdict in the case of
Abdelghani Mzoudi which was expected this week. Prosecutors gave no
details of the new witness but Mr Mzoudi's defence lawyer, Guel Pinar,
said the witness was an unidentified Iranian intelligence officer who
was claiming to have informed US authorities of an impending
attack before September 2001.

Court
Backs EPA on Anti-Pollution Rules
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the federal Environmental Protection
Agency can override state officials and order some anti-pollution measures
that may be more costly.

Democrats
Won't Get Justice MemoTexans
Say Document Could
Embarrass
GOP[Holy
too f**king bad, Batman!] The Justice Department has formally refused
a demand from Texas Democrats to release a lengthy internal memo about
a Republican redistricting plan that experts believe could produce
a GOP gain of as many as seven House seats in that state later this
year, according to documents and officials. The new voting map was enacted
in October by the Republican-controlled Texas legislature after months
of conflict, and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft cleared it in
December.

Report
Says Internet 'Voting' System Is Too Insecure to Use
A new $22 million system to allow soldiers and other Americans overseas
to vote via the Internet is inherently insecure and should
be abandoned, according to members of a panel of computer
security experts asked by the government to review the program. The
system, Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE,
was developed with financing from the Department of Defense and will
first be used in this year's primaries and general s-election.
[We need to stop Karl Rove's preparations for the second Bush coup
d'etat.]

Risks
Seen in Pentagon's Internet 'Voting' Plan The U.S. government
should abandon an Internet-'voting' system planned by the Pentagon because
hackers could easily tamper with election results, several computer-science
professors said on Wednesday.

Wireless
e-voting machines raise concern
Computer scientists are concerned that new electronic 'voting' machines
- already bought by several US states - have been designed to have the
capability to transmit vote tallies wirelessly. Critics of e-voting
have previously cited uncertified software upgrades or bugs in the programs
as problems, but they say the new touchscreen machines' wireless potential
poses a novel security threat.

Bottom
Lines From Sen. Lott?
In the Washingtonian's February issue, National Editor Kim Eisler quotes
Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican, as referring to former Carter
administration official and journalist Hodding Carter III as "Hodding
the Turd". Carter responded. "That's my boy," he said of Lott, laughing
and recalling that their mutual "animus" dated to the days when Carter
owned a newspaper in Greenville, Miss. "I ran
editorials saying then what he is now: a racist piece of dreck."

As
Democrats Vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, Dictator
Bush Looks Vulnerable in Both His Re-S-elect
and Face-Off with Generic Democrat
--Dictator George W. Bush’s job performance has dropped since mid-December,
while his vulnerability increases when matched against an unnamed Democrat
or when respondents are asked if he should be re-s-elected.
Matched against an unnamed Democrat: January 15-18, 2004 - Bush %
41;
Any Democrat % 45

Bribes
claim threatens to bring down Sharon
Ariel Sharon has been left one step away from corruption charges and
being forced from office by the indictment of a businessman yesterday
for allegedly paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Israeli
prime minister's family for political favours.

Abortion
foe clobbered with pie
Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry held a press conference outside
an East Village Planned Parenthood yesterday - and was promptly greeted
by a chocolate pie.

U.S.
Rep pushes for impeachment hearings on Cheney
U.S. Rep Jerry Costello has called for impeachment hearings against
U.S. Vice pResident Dick Cheney
during Congress' session that begins today. Costello questioned the
award of billions of dollars of contracts to Cheney's former corporation
Halliburton to 'extinguish fires' and
'rebuild' Iraq's oil infrastructure after the war.

Iraqis
Want Saddam's Old U.S. Friends on Trial
If Iraqis ever see Saddam Hussein on trial, they want his former
American allies shackled beside him[Yes! We want to see that,
as well. The entire Bush junta needs to be tried and convicted for past
and present W-ar crimes!!]

US
set for Iraq election retreatBritain
now backs early poll
--The US-led occupation in Iraq is on the verge of bowing to Shia Muslim
pressure for direct elections before the handover of power on June 30,
the Guardian has learned.

Kurds
turn against US after losing control over oil-rich landKurdish community
claims it had more autonomy under Saddam Hussein
--Iraqi Kurds, the one Iraqi community that has broadly supported the
American occupation, are expressing growing anger at the failure
of the United States and its allies to give them full control of their
own affairs and allow the Kurds to expel Arabs placed in Kurdistan
by Saddam Hussein.

Why
Do Iowans Like to Caucus But Iraqis Don't?
--by Ivan Eland "Iowans seem pretty happy with their quadrennial
caucuses... Half a world away, however, Iraqi Shiites have launched
massive demonstrations against the Bush administration’s plan for caucuses
to elect an interim national assembly. Why do Iowans love what Iraqi
Shiites hate? It’s simple: Iowa's version of caucuses is true grassroots
democracy in action, whereas the U.S. occupation authority’s version
in Iraq is a sham."

Spanish
politician in Blair gaffe
A Spanish politician has reportedly called Poodle Tony Blair "a
complete dickhead" on live television, but didn't know his
comment had been heard. The comment by Jose Bono, one of the three most
powerful figures in Spain's Socialist Party, was recorded by a TV team
as he talked to Joaquin Almunia, a former Socialist leader. Mr Bono
said: "Hey, and our colleague Blair? He's a complete dickhead (un
gilipollas integral). He's an imbecile."

Two
post-Iraq suicides not listed by Army
A soldier who served in Iraq apparently hanged himself with a bedsheet
last week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but the Pentagon did
not count that death two days later when it announced "a very small
increase" in the suicide rate from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Missile
Lands in U.S. Compound in IraqA missile landed in the sprawling U.S. compound in central Baghdad
late Tuesday, causing little damage, a U.S. spokesman said. Officials
were investigating a report that one person was wounded.

Exit
polls, Iowa Caucuses
(MSNBC) "Do you approve or disapprove of the United States' decision
to go to war with Iraq last year? Disapprove, 75
%; Approve, 24 %"

Pentagon
auditors request Halliburton probeHalliburton
Co. faced
new troubles Thursday over its Iraqi operations as Pentagon auditors
requested a formal investigation into the company, and a prominent House
Democrat accused Halliburton and Bush regime officials of wrongdoing.

Venezuela's
Security & Defense Council confirms USA involvement in April 2002 coup
d'etat
During an interview on State VTV program, " En Confianza," Venezuela's
Defense Council of the Nation secretary, General Melvin Lopez Hidalgo,
presented evidence of US Embassy complicity in the events of April 11,
2002, implicating a US citizen. The citizen identified himself as a
US Major and was captured in 2001 when, the General claims, the coup
was in its planning stages.

Guantanamo
families to take fight to USAmerican
civil liberties group to help British detainees --The families of
British detainees at Guantanamo Bay are to take their fight for the
men's release to the US with the help of the foremost American civil
liberties group, they announced yesterday.

5
million on terrorism list
U.S. security agents have a master list of five million people
worldwide thought to be potential
terrorists or criminals, officials say. "The U.S. lookout index contains
some five million names of known terrorists and other persons representing
a potential problem," Brian Davis,
a senior Canadian immigration official in Paris, said in a confidential
document obtained by the Sun. [Hopefully, international terrorist
and criminal George W. Bush is on the list, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Rove and Ashkkkroft.]

Bush
Pushes Plan to Permit Internet Surveillance
The Bush dictatorship is pushing to ratify an international convention
that civil libertarians say would pose serious threats to privacy
rights at home and abroad. After delaying for about two years, U.S.
Dictator George W. Bush recently asked the U.S. Senate to ratify the
Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention, a global agreement apparently
created to help police worldwide cooperate to STOP
DISSENT ['fight Internet crimes']. The agreement also makes
it mandatory for each participating nation to grant new powers of
search and seizure to its law enforcement authorities, including the
power to force an Internet service provider (ISP) to preserve a customer's
usage records and to monitor his or her online
activities as they occur. If approved by the Senate, experts
say, U.S. police would be required to cooperate in "mutual assistance
requests" from police in other nations "to the widest extent
possible".

A further
attack on democratic rightsAll
US airline passengers to undergo government background checks
--by Jamie Chapman "The US Transportation Security Agency (TSA)
gave the go-ahead last week to a new screening system for airline passengers.
The Computer Assisted Passenger PreScreening program, known as CAPPS
2, involves a two-stage process for determining who will be subject
to additional security checks at airports, and who will be denied the
right to fly altogether."

Britain
prepares its own version of US Patriot Act
--by Richard Tyler "The Civil Contingencies Bill, published on
January 7, is meant to serve as a legal veneer for the Labour government
of Prime Minister Tony Blair to defend its own existence during an 'emergency'.
It grants ministers draconian powers to remove fundamental civil
liberties."

The
most prominent cabal of international terrorists are assembled in one
room, yet:Security
tightens for dictator's speechDrill
staged to prepare for potential attack --The nation’s capital
is being wrapped in an unusually tight security blanket Tuesday in preparation
for Dictator Bush’s State of the disUnion speech, according to
government officials. Two weeks ago Capitol Hill officials staged
a mock attack [?!!!] on the Capitol building as one might play
out during the State of the Union address.

Text
of Bush's speech --Transcript of Dictator Bush's State of the
Union address as recorded by The New York Times.

Dems
Challenge Bush's Picture of U.S.
Democrats challenged the bright picture of America presented in Dictator
Bush's State of the disUnion address Tuesday, saying it belied
a darker reality of lost jobs, rising deficits and mounting casualties
in Iraq.

Bush
Tax Agenda Clashes With Deficits
Dictator Bush used his State of the disUnion address to renew
calls for permanent tax cuts, a goal that appears stymied already
by congressional brooding over budget deficits and the unrelenting politicking
of an election year.

Addressing
Bush's state of disunion
--by James Carroll "In his state of the Union address tonight,
President [sic] Bush will speak of the nightmare he has created in Iraq
as if it is a dream come true. Yet the contrary facts of the American
misadventure have begun to speak for themselves. When the awful story
of the Iraq war is written, the two weeks just past may be recognized
as a time when the deception and disarray of Bush's policy were made
more clear than ever."

Fiction
review: State of the Union
--by Gene Collier "Last year's State of the Union address didn't
come until Jan. 28, but back then there were no Iowa caucuses to
divert attention from, and, in the judgment of White House political
operatives, there was no particular rush to have George Bush lie on
the record... As for the famous weapons of mass destruction justification
for the pre-emptive Iraq action, the same phantom numbers also remain
on the White House Web site: 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters
of botulinim toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, and
30,000 munitions for delivering chemical weapons... In the meantime,
500 young Americans are dead, thousands more maimed, and the far greater
number of Iraqi civilians blown to bits, many of them children, can't
even be reliably estimated."

Going
for Broke
--by Paul Krugman "Meanwhile, the lying has already begun,
with the Republican National Committee's willful misrepresentation of
Wesley Clark's prewar statements. (Why are news organizations letting
them get away with this?) The question we should ask is, Where is all
this leading? ...Karl Rove and other insiders must know all this.
So they must figure that once they have won the [s-]election,
they will have such a complete lock on power
that they can break many of their promises with impunity. What will
they do with that lock on power? Their election strategy — confuse the
middle, but feed the base — suggests the answer."

U.S.
uses 1800s law to target Greenpeace
When prosecutors brought charges against Greenpeace for protesting a
shipment of Amazon mahogany, they dusted off a 19th century federal
law enacted to stop pimps from clambering aboard ships entering port.
The federal government has never successfully prosecuted an entire activist
organization on criminal charges over its protest methods -- not Operation
Rescue, not the NAACP, not even the Ku Klux
Klan.

Poll:
Dean Holds Slim New Hampshire Lead Over Kerry
Democrat Howard Dean holds a dwindling two-point lead over Iowa caucus
winner John Kerry in New Hampshire one week before the state's presidential
primary, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.

Citigroup
earnings hit $18bn full-year record
Citigroup, the world's biggest financial services group, on Tuesday
underlined the benefits of size and diversity by reporting a 17 per
cent jump in annual net income to $17.85bn, a record for a publicly
traded company.

Sharon
backs art-wrecking ambassador
Ariel Sharon, Israel's Prime Minister, has supported his ambassador
to Sweden, who vandalised an installation in a Stockholm exhibition
that featured a Palestinian woman suicide bomber.

Coke
with Yet Another New Twist: Toxic Cola
--by Amit Srivastava "The Indian parliament has banned the sale
of Coke and Pepsi products in its cafeteria... The ban came as the result
of tests, including those by the Indian government, which found high
concentrations of pesticides and insecticides, including lindane, DDT,
malathion and chlorpyrifos, in the colas, making them unfit for consumption."

CLG
Endorses Dennis Kucinich(CLG Press Release)"Citizens for Legitimate Government
Steering Committee EndorsesDennis
Kucinich as the Democratic candidate for President in 2004."
CLG Founder, Michael D. Rectenwald, announced the CLG's endorsement.
Click hereto see the CLG endorsement press release on the kucinich.uswebsite.

Tens
of thousands march to demand elections
They marched by the tens of thousands for hours and hours, waving banners,
shouting slogans and proudly carrying photographs of the man they called
their inspiration - Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. "All the people are with
you, Sayyed Ali," demonstrators chanted yesterday as part of the rapidly
growing movement to reject the US plan to turn over its control to
Iraqis on July 1 without direct elections.
[We need to fight for 'Diebold-free' direct elections here, too!]

UN
Expected to Intervene in Iraqi Election Dispute
The United Nations appeared likely to accept a request from Iraqi leaders
and the United States on Monday to send a mission to Baghdad that might
help resolve an impasse on electing an interim government by July.

US
begins new Baghdad offensive
US military officers say they have begun a new offensive in Baghdad,
called Operation Iron Resolve [???!!!], aimed at landing a knockout
blow against insurgent leaders and financiers in the capital.

'I
will survive', vows Blair
Poodle Tony Blair says he faces a difficult time next week when Parliament
votes on top-up fees and the Hutton Inquiry publishes its report into
the death of Dr David Kelly.

Hutton:
48% think Blair liedPoll
reveals public pressure for resignation if PM criticised
-Poodle Tony Blair is losing the battle for public opinion on two
key issues - the Hutton inquiry and tuition fees - that will next
week determine the fate of his premiership, according to the results
of this month's Guardian/ICM opinion poll.

Widow
renews attack after meeting Hoon
The widow of a British soldier killed in the Iraq war due to a shortage
of body armour called for Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence,
to "consider his position'" yesterday after meeting him in London.

Diplomat
Worried of U.S. Plans for Cuba
Dagoberto Rodriguez, Cuba's top diplomat in Washington, spends his days
looking for hints about what the Bush dictatorship has in mind for his
country. He doesn't like what he sees. [We don't like what Bush has
in store for us, either!]

Will
proposed school terror plan terrify children?
The Florida Senate is looking at a law that would require every public
school in the state to hold 10 emergency drills a year, including
five full scale evacuations and at least one that amounts to a terrorist
drill. This idea has educators worried about the mental welfare
of their students.

George
W Bush and the real state of the [dis]Union
Today the Dictator gives his annual address. As the election battle
begins, how does his first term add up? 501:
Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the beginning of the
war - so far 0: Number of American
combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender to the Allies in May
1945 0: Number of coffins of dead
soldiers returning home from Iraq that the Bush regime has allowed to
be photographed 0: Number of funerals
or memorials that Dictator Bush has attended for soldiers killed in
Iraq 100: Number of fund-raisers
attended by Bush or Vice-pResident
Dick Cheney in 2003...

Domestic
Issues Hurt Bush in PollUnnamed
Democrat Pulls Nearly Even --Dictator Bush delivers his State of
the disUnion address tonight to
an American public that has become broadly
dissatisfied with his domestic agenda, according to a new
Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Insurers
to Get 10.6% Increase From Medicare
Dictator Bush will increase Medicare payments to health maintenance
organizations and other private health plans by a record 10.6
percent in an effort to line the pockets of Bush's paymasters ['persuade
them to enter the Medicare market and increase benefits for the elderly'],
dictatorship officials say.

Space
Industry Could See $90+ Billion Market This Year
The International Space Business Council announced that the '2004 State
of the Space Industry' would be released late this week. Among its conclusions
are that a rebound in commercial orders for satellites and launch vehicles,
combined with an increasing Department of Defense budget for space
systems, and a rise in consumer satellite services will drive the
industry toward greater growth.

Three-fifths
of Americans oppose Bush's mission to moon, Mars
More than three-fifths of Americans oppose Dictator George W. Bush's
proposal to return to the moon and eventually put a human on Mars, according
to a poll released Sunday. [Well, if Bush is the one sent - albeit
short of the necessities that would elevate him to 'human' status -
that's fine.]

Massachusetts
Senator Gets Lift for the Race in New Hampshire Senator John
Kerry of Massachusetts won the Iowa caucuses here Monday by presenting
himself as the strongest Democrat his party had to send up against Dictator
Bush next year. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina came in second,
catapulting him into the first tier of presidential contenders.

In
Defeat, Fiery Dean Sounds ReinvigoratedLongtime
frontrunner shrugs off Iowa finish with perhaps his most frenzied speech
yet. With hundreds of supporters waving American flags and chanting
his name, former Vermont governor Howard Dean gave Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin
a hard high-five...

Dean
Blames Third-Place Finish on Attacks
Howard Dean finished his Iowa campaign Monday night the way he began
— impassioned and defiant of his Washington rivals. "We have not
begun to fight," Dean shouted to supporters after a third-place
finish behind Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of
North Carolina.

Gephardt
Signals End to Presidential Bid
Rep. Dick Gephardt conceded defeat in the Democratic presidential race
Monday night after a weak fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and
aides said he would fly home to make a formal withdrawal.

Edwards,
Kucinich agree to share support in Iowa caucuses
Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich
have struck a deal to support each other should one candidate fail to
draw the minimum support needed to compete in Monday night's Iowa caucuses,
Edwards campaign sources said.

King
Day Marked With Protests Against War
Americans observed Martin Luther King Day on Monday with some activists
charging that the W-ar in Iraq
and other Bush regime policies run counter to what the civil rights
leader stood for.

Students
walk out on Bush's speech'Students
of FAMU' leave before Gov. Jeb Bush speaks on Martin Luther King Day,
arguing the governor's visit is disrespectful to Dr. King's legacy and
black students. About a dozen students walked out Monday before
Gov. Jeb Bush gave a Martin Luther King Day address at historically
black Florida A&M University.

Japan
Minister Says Worried About More BSE in U.S.
Japan's farm minister on Tuesday expressed concern about the possibility
the United States might discover new cases of mad cow disease, and reiterated
Japan's stance that it would not resume imports until it was sure of
the safety of U.S. beef.

More
Cows of Infected Canadian Herd Found
While farmers tried to boost consumer confidence shaken by the country's
first case of mad cow disease, federal agriculture officials announced
they had tracked down five more animals from a herd of Canadian cattle
that included the infected Holstein, slaughtered in Washington state.

U.S.
eyes space as possible battlegroundDictator
George W. Bush's plan to expand the exploration of space parallels U.S. efforts to control the heavens for military, economic
and strategic gain. Among other things, the Pentagon expects to spend
at least $50 billion over the next five
years to develop and field a multi-layered shield against incoming
missiles that could deliver nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Blair
faces new war crimes accusation
An eminent panel of legal experts is to accuse Poodle Tony Blair of
committing war crimes in Iraq in a formal complaint to the International
Criminal Court in The Hague.

'I
have changed my mind on Blair: he's worse than I thought'
A few months ago, Tam Dalyell, the veteran Labour MP and founder of
Parliament's awkward squad, said Poodle Tony Blair was the "worst
Prime Minister" of the eight he has known. Over afternoon tea with
strawberry jam and scones in the elegant Pugin Bar at the House of Commons,
Mr Dalyell confided to me [Reporter Colin Brown] that he had changed
his opinion of Mr Blair. "He is not the worst," said Mr Dalyell
last week. "He is by far the worst."
"Tony should go," he declared. "And he should take his friend
Lord Falconer [the Lord Chancellor] with him."

Queen
Rift With Blair Over Iraq and Peers
The Queen blocked a new wave of peerages in the New Year's honours,
saying it was 'too political'... She has repeatedly questioned Blair
about the role of British troops in Iraq and when they would be
able to come home.

Hoon
faces censure over body armour for UK troopsDefence
Secretary dismissed Army fears. Government 'delayed procurement of vital
kit' --The row over fatal shortages of equipment for British troops
intensified last night as it emerged that the Secretary of State for
Defence, Geoff Hoon, is to be censured in a Commons report and
that key procurements were delayed because of their political sensitivity.

Hoon
criticised for saying Kelly was 'no martyr'
Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, came in for renewed
criticism yesterday after he was accused of prejudging Lord Hutton's
inquiry into the death of the government scientist David Kelly.

'No
blister agent' in Iraq shells
Three dozen mortar shells uncovered in Iraq earlier this month had no
chemical agents, the Danish army says. It is not clear why initial
tests first showed they could contain blister gas, the Danish army
said in a statement carried by the AP news agency. [The initial 'test
results' were for the Faux 'News' propaganda circuit.]

Bush's
pipe dreams for reconstructing Iraq Nine months after the fall
of Baghdad, as resistance fighters target oil installations and Iraqis
queue for fuel, the Bush dictatorship has abandoned its pre-war assertions
that Iraq's natural resources would largely fund reconstruction. Behind
the scenes, senior figures in the regime - including Donald Rumsfeld,
defence secretary, Douglas Feith, in charge of Pentagon postwar planning,
Vice-pResident Richard Cheney, as well as the CIA's George Tenet
- were being advised by former officials, experts and corporate bosses
that the badly dilapidated Iraqi oil industry in no way represented
a financial lifeline.

At
Least 20 Dead in Baghdad BlastSuicide
Attack Outside U.S. Headquarters Wounds Over 60 --A white pickup
truck loaded with 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives and several 155mm
artillery shells exploded at the main public gate to the U.S. occupation
headquarters Sunday, killing at least 20 bystanders and injuring more
than 60 others, U.S. military officials said.

2
U.S. Defense Workers Among Dead in Baghdad Blast
A suicide bomber blew up his car outside the main U.S. headquarters
in Baghdad on Sunday, killing 16 Iraqi civilians and two U.S. Defense
Department staff in the deadliest attack in Baghdad since the 'capture'
of Saddam Hussein.

NZ
Greens see red over missile plan
A proposed joint Australia-United States military training facility
across the Tasman could lead to a downgrade of New Zealand's defence
relationship with its neighbour, the Green Party warns. New Zealand
"should be upfront that we don't look kindly on US bases being established
there", Greens foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke said.

French
fury over US treatment of air staff
In the latest bout of Franco-American squabbling, hundreds of Air France
pilots and cabin crew who have French nationality but were born in Muslim
countries are furious at being singled out for stringent security
measures when they land in the US.

Bush
seeking Supreme Court precedents to dismantle democratic rights
--by John Andrews "The Bush administration is using cases of people
dragooned during its so-called 'war on terror' to establish broad legal
precedents supporting unlimited presidential power to imprison people
without charges and then to hide its operations from public scrutiny.
Having already upheld the Bush administration in one such case, the
same Supreme Court which intervened in the 2000 elections to halt the
counting of Florida ballots and steal the election for George Bush will
be deciding at least four more 'war on terror' cases before its term
ends in late June."

Paper:
9/11 Trial Prosecutor Investigated
The Justice Department is investigating possible misconduct by
the lead prosecutor in the nation's first major post-Sept. 11 terrorism
trial, according to a published report.

9/11
Panel Unlikely to Get Later DeadlineHearings
Being Scaled Back to Finish Work by May --Dictator Bush and
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Nutball-Ill.) have decided to oppose
granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks, virtually guaranteeing that the panel will have to
complete its work by the end of May, officials said last week. A
growing number of commission members had concluded that the panel needs
more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps
leading to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
But the White House and leading Republicans have informed the panel
that they oppose any delay, which raises the possibility thatSept.
11-related controversies could emerge during the heat of the
presidential campaign, sources said. [Hmm... what 'Sept. 11-related
controversies could they possibly be referring to? That 'Bush knew'?]

Trip
With Cheney Puts Ethics Spotlight on ScaliaFriends
hunt ducks together, even as the justice is set to hear the vice pResident's
case. Vice pResident Dick Cheney and Supreme Court inJustice
Antonin Scalia spent part of last week duck hunting together at a private
camp in southern Louisiana just three weeks after the court agreed to
take up the vice pResident's appeal in lawsuits over his handling
of the regime's energy task force.

Bush
to Revive Social Security Tax Plan
Dictator Bush will use next week's State of the Union address to try
to revive a proposal that would allow younger workers to invest a
portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market, aides
say.

US
beef 'passed off as Australian'
One of Australia's key beef customers has confirmed that some United
States beef is being illegally labelled and sold as Australian product.

U.S.
School Segregation Now at '69 Level
Half a century after the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of
American education, schools are almost as segregated as they were
when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, according
to a report released today by Harvard University researchers.

Protesters
rally against Bush policies
(WY) Across the street from a building bearing the name of Vice pResident
Dick Cheney, around 100 people gathered in Pioneer Park on Saturday
to protest the policies of Cheney and his boss, Dictator George W. Bush.
"We went into a sovereign nation and decimated the population,"
said event organizer Thomas Bleming of Lusk...

College
Republican Blackshirts Turn Violent:Two
political rallies turned into a brawl Saturday night in Des Moines.
Democratic rally at Drake's Olmstead Center featured comedian Janene
Garafalo and classic rock star Joan Jett, but it got a surprise visit
from some unwanted guests. A group of college Republicans [Waffen-SS]
at their Midwest caucus leadership conference heard about the rally
and stormed in. One of the Bush supporters
shoved Jett and she pushed back in anger.

'04
[S-]Election Could Be 2000 Redux[No, no it won't.
We will *not* permit a second Reichwing coup d'etat in Amerika.]
A CBS News/New York Times poll shows that the election year is starting
with a White House race that resembles the ultra-close and hotly-contested
coup in 2000. If the November presidential election were held today,
45% of voters say they would vote for
the Democratic candidate and 43% would
vote to re-s-elect Dictator Bush.

The
betrayal of U.S. votersIt is little wonder that last month, Fortune magazine named paperless
voting its "worst technology" of 2003.
Electronic voting machines should produce a paper trail - hard-copy
receipts that voters can check to ensure that their votes were accurately
reported and that can later be used in a recount. Compounding the technology
issues are the political entanglements of voting machine companies.
Walden O'Dell, the head of Diebold Inc.,
has raised large sums for Dictator George W. Bush and pledged in a campaign
fund-raising letter that he was "committed
to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [sic]"
in 2004.

Timing
of Address No Accident, Official Says
The winner of the Iowa caucuses on Monday night will have an unexpected
competitor waiting right around the corner, and he is not one of the
Democrats running for president. The opponent is Dictator Bush and his
State of the Union address, which White House officials scheduled for
Tuesday night, only 24 hours after Iowa, to draw attention from the
Democratic victor, a Republican close to the Bush campaign said.

Carter
praises Dean's 'courageous and outspoken' stands
Former President Carter praised Democrat Howard Dean on Sunday for his
"courageous and outspoken" stands -- in particular his steadfast opposition
to the Iraq war -- but the 39th president stopped short of an endorsement
on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

Dean,
Ex-President Carter Meet on Eve of Caucus
Sending a subtle message of support on the eve of the Iowa caucuses,
former President Jimmy Carter on Sunday praised Democratic White House
hopeful Howard Dean's courage and frankness after they met over homemade
scones and jam.

Howard
Dean in the N.H. primary
(The Keene Sentinel) "Today, this newspaper endorses Howard Dean’s
candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. We come to this
decision not without some difficulty, given the appeal of the Clark
and Edwards candidacies. But we believe on balance that Dean is best-equipped
to restore respect for this country abroad while protecting the interests
of Americans at home."

Dean's
Wife Joins Him on Iowa Campaign
Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean, facing a tight battle
in Monday's Iowa caucuses, got some last-minute help from a surprise
source on Sunday -- his wife.

Edwards
Hopes for Iowa Caucus Surprise
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards vowed Sunday to defeat
Dictator Bush across "my back yard" in the South as he strained to convert
late campaign enthusiasm into an Iowa caucus surprise.

Clark
Wins Endorsement From McGovern
Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark was endorsed Sunday by
former Sen. George McGovern, the party's 1972 nominee. He called Clark
the "best of the lot" of candidates in the race.

Jimmy
Walter wears a mock flight suit
to make fun of U.S. Dictator George W. Bush before a campaign stop for
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate retired General Wesley Clark
in Pembroke, New Hampshire, January 17, 2004. One of the patches
on Walter's flight suit reads 'Chicken Hawk in Chief.' (photo)

Kerry
Is Helped by Kennedy in Final Push in Iowa
In a final push before Iowa passes judgment on the Democrats who would
be president, John Kerry campaigned on Sunday with his party's most
iconic figure, Edward Kennedy, and a man whose life Kerry had saved
during the Vietnam war.

Kucinich
Defends Native American Rights
As other candidates for the Democratic nomination for president swarmed
Iowa on the Saturday before its leadoff caucuses, Dennis Kucinich was
in New Mexico calling for greater protection of rights for American
Indians.

World
Social SummitActivists
call for actions against US companies The anti-globalisation
movement was weighing its tone yesterday as its annual strategy meeting
got underway with calls for action against US companies and appeals
to find a new and more militant means of protest.

Activist
uses the sand as his canvas
An activist artist re-creates a Picasso poster on South Beach, using
people as his paint. (FL) Saturday afternoon, before a crowd of more
than 1,000 gathered in the name of peace, artist John Quigley re-created
Pablo Picasso's 1959 Amnistia on the sand just north of 10th
Street in South Beach -- using people as his art material.

Poll:
Bush's Approval Sinking
A CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,022 adults puts the dictator's approval
rating at 50%, matching his lowest ever, and the largest
number ever – 45% - disapproving. [I am now thinking and
linking... the perfect storm is brewing: 9-11 commission revelations,
O'Neill's book, the resistance in Iraq running rampant... plummeting
poll numbers could mean the dreaded October Surprise:
Will Cheney-Rove 'allow' a terrorist attack, to provide for the November
coup d'etat? Bush has pulled/scaled back most of the 'real' security
measures at ports and nuclear plants. Why?]

Poll:
Bush Slipping Among Independents
Dictator Bush's support among political independents, a critical voting
group in the coming year, has been slipping in recent weeks, a poll
released Saturday found.

At
Least 18 Killed in Bomb Attack in BaghdadA large bomb exploded at the main gate of the American occupation
headquarters in Baghdad on Sunday morning, killing and wounding
people in a crowd gathering to enter the heavily fortified compound.
The attack appeared to be an effort by resistance fighters to strike
as close as they could approach to the heart of American authority
in Baghdad. The bomb killed at least 16 Iraqi civilians and two employees
of the U.S. Department of Defense, and wounded at least 25, Reuters
reported.

Large
Explosion Rocks Central Baghdad, 15 Dead
A suspected car bomb exploded outside the main U.S.
military and civilian headquarters in Baghdad on Sunday,
killing about 15 Iraqis, wounding several other people and setting vehicles
on fire.

U.S.
death toll in Iraq reaches 5003
U.S. soldiers killed in bombing, fourth dies in non-combat incident
--The number of U.S. service members who have died in Iraq since the
war began last March reached 500 on Saturday after a roadside bomb detonated
north of Baghdad, killing three U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civil defense
troopers.

Iraq
Resistance Seen Using More Skill to Down Copters
A classified Army study of the downings of military helicopters in Iraq
found that resistance fighters have used increasingly sophisticated
tactics and weapons — including at least one advanced missile — to attack
American aircraft, senior Army officials in Iraq and the Persian Gulf
region say.

Halliburton
unit may be subject of criminal probeOvercharging
alleged on fuel in Iraq --Pentagon yet to make official decision
--Three U.S. lawmakers say Pentagon criminal investigators have
been asked to look into whether a unit of Halliburton
Co., the oil-services company once headed by Vice-pResident
Dick Cheney, overcharged for fuel trucked into Iraq. Trucking in fuel
was part of a no-bid contract given
to Halliburton's Kellogg Brown &
Root Inc. to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.

Occupation
uses 1918 British report on tribal system
As the United States scrambles to end a dispute with Shia leaders over
plans to elect an interim government in Iraq before July, it has emerged
that American commanders are seeking to reach out to tribal leaders
by relying on a report devised in 1918 by Britain, the country's
then ruler. [Insert eyeroll here.]

Dems
chide Bush on intel and security
Just four days before the dictator's State of the disUnion
address, congressional Democrats challenged the regime on both homeland
security and the nagging questions about the intelligence that led the
United States into war against Iraq.

A
Dishonest War
--by Edward M. Kennedy "Of the many issues competing for attention
in this new and defining year, one is of a unique order of magnitude:
President [sic] Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq. The facts demonstrate
how dishonest that decision was. As former Treasury secretary Paul H.
O'Neill recently confirmed, the debate over military action began as
soon as President [sic] Bush took office [literally, *took*
office]... The events of Sept. 11, 2001, gave advocates of war the
opening they needed."

Pentagon
Withholds Cold War Medical DataAP Enterprise: Pentagon Denying Victims Data on Cold War Weapons
Tests -- The Pentagon is continuing to withhold documents on Cold War
chemical and biological weapons tests that used unsuspecting sailors
as "human samplers" [?!?] after telling
Congress it had released all medically relevant information.

US
military will stay in Georgia
US officials have said that their military presence in Georgia will
now become permanent. Having trained three battalions of Georgian soldiers,
US military instructors were due to leave in March.

Al-Qaeda
launches online terrorist manual
Al-Qaeda has issued a chilling new call to arms to recruits who remain
undetected by security agencies. In a terrorist manual published on
the internet, Osama bin Laden says: 'After Iraq
and Afghanistan will come the Crusader invasion of Saudi Arabia. All
fighters all over the world must be ready.' [Thanks for making us
so much safer, Bush... NOT!!]

Bush
Seeks Quick Ruling on U.S. Detainees
The Bush dictatorship is asking the Supreme Court to decide by summer
whether national security justifies detention
of American citizens indefinitely and without charges.

Airline
Gave Government Information on Passengers
A second airline has acknowledged releasing information on its passengers
for an experiment to determine if the government could "mine"
the data to spot terrorists. The carrier, Northwest Airlines, confirmed
that it gave NASA[???!!!] data on passengers who flew
during several months in 2001. The information Northwest turned over
to the government appears to involve more than 10
million passengers.Researchers
at NASA's Ames Laboratory had hoped to use data to find unusual travel
patterns as clues to terrorists' identities. [Hey, NASA!
Here's a terrorist's identity: George W. Bush, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
He has killed thousands, and is threatening to kill again. He must be
stopped.]

Watching
Big Brother
Bill Brown wants to take you on the Surveillance Camera Outdoor Walking
Tour (Scowt for short) in New York... In the five years since the New
York Civil Liberties Union counted 2,397 cameras in the first formal
survey in New York, Mr. Brown estimated that the number of cameras jumped
to 7,200.

Clark
Hints at Bush's Military Service
[or lack thereof] Wesley Clark suggested Saturday that questions remain
about Dictator Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National
Guard, but the retired general stopped short of endorsing a comment
by actor-director Michael Moore that Bush was "a
deserter."

Schwarzenegger
Budget Denies Some Health Care
Reichwing GOP 'Governor' Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal would cap
health care payments for illegal immigrants, reduce state payments for
in-home care of the elderly and disabled and suspend the scheduled 2005
cost-of-living increase in the state's share of the Supplemental Security
Income program. More than 75,000 legal and illegal immigrants and 110,000
children in low-income families would lose health coverage in the first
year of the plan, according to Health Access, a nonprofit group that
advocates expansion of coverage.

Workers
Assail Night Lock-Ins by Wal-Mart
For more than 15 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer,
has locked in overnight employees at some of its Wal-Mart and Sam's
Club stores. It is a policy that many employees say has created disconcerting
situations, such as when a worker in Indiana suffered a heart attack,
when hurricanes hit in Florida and when workers' wives have gone into
labor.

White
House: Direct Elections Unfeasible in Iraq Bush
Considers Changes to Iraq Handover Plan Faced with objections
from Iraq's most powerful Muslim cleric, the White House said on Friday
that it may agree to changes in a plan to hand over political power
to Iraqis by July 1 but insisted direct elections
were unfeasible. [We don't have direct elections here,
either!]

U.S.
May Rethink Election in IraqBremer
leaves Baghdad for talks in Washington as a Shiite leader builds pressure
for a direct vote, which so far has been opposed by Bush. U.S. officials
say there is no time to prepare for free and
fair elections by June 30, when the United States plans to
return sovereignty to Iraq. [There was/is 'no time' for free and
fair elections here, either, as George Bush stole the 2000 election
in a coup d'etat, and the Diebold touch-screen 'voting' machines, sans
paper trail, are poised to implement the 2004 coup.]

Hoon
admits he may be forced to resign
Defence secretary Geoff Hoon on Friday admitted he could be forced to
resign following the impending Hutton report and an investigation into
claims that equipment shortages caused the death of a British soldier.

Hoon
must quit, says Iraq widow
The widow of a British soldier killed in Iraq after having to give his
body armour to other soldiers has called on Defence Secretary Geoff
Hoon to resign.

Iraqi
Oil Gets Own Police Force
A security upgrade is part of the new Iraqi Force Protection Service,
specifically charged with safeguarding the pipelines and refineries
that are the circulatory system of Halliburton's
['the country's'] financial lifeblood.

Halliburton
subsidiary wins Iraq oil contract
The US military awarded two contracts Friday to boost Halliburton's
coffers ['restore Iraq's oil infrastructure to pre-W-ar
levels'], the largest one worth up to 1.2
billion dollars going to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root.

Sanchez
Orders Iraq Prisoner Abuse Probe
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq has ordered an investigation into
reports of abuse of prisoners at occupation detention centers
here, the U.S. military said Friday.

Jailed
Immigrants to Register for Draft
Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who gained notoriety for putting
inmates on chain gangs and issuing them striped uniforms and pink underwear,
has now ordered all undocumented immigrants currently in jail to register
for the draft.

Cheney's
grim vision: decades of W-ar
In a forceful preview of the Bush regime's expansionist military
policies in this s-election year, Vice
pResident Dick Cheney Wednesday
painted a grim picture of what he said was the growing threat of a catastrophic
terrorist attack in the United States and warned that the 'battle',
like the Cold War, could last generations. The vice pResident's
tone, in a major address to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, was
sobering, unlike many other comments recently by senior dictatorship
officials that have stressed successes in the war on terrorism. [The
Bush junta, an organized and heavily funded group of terrorists and
the biggest threat to world peace, needs to be stopped.]

Waihopai
"US spy base" in NZ
Activists plan protest against Waihopai spy base in Marlborough, claim
it is working for US "crimes against
humanity" --Activists will be out in force in Blenheim this
week protesting at what they describe as the hypocrisy of the Waihopai
spy base. They say the base is New Zealand's biggest contribution to
the war in Iraq.

Fresh
RecruitsIf
Bush wants to continue to occupy Iraq, he's going to have to find some
new soldiers to do the work --by Eleanor Clift "It's one of
those little ironies of life that Democrats in Congress are pressing
for an expanded military while their party prepares to nominate an antiwar
candidate for president... Meanwhile, the Republicans, the party of
small government and fiscal restraint, are ginning up a big new spending
program to send Americans to the moon while whistling past the deficits."

Well,
well, well. Looky here! Check out the impetus
behind the Idiot Usurper's new Moon-Mars obsession:NASA
Ames Center looks at problem of drilling on Mars (Petroleum
News --North America's Source for Oil and Gas News, February, 2001)
Week of February 28, 2001 --Dr. Geoffrey Briggs, director, Center for
Mars Exploration at the NASA Ames Center, told "Meet Alaska"
that NASA is looking at ways to drill on Mars to look for water — and
the life it might contain. Briggs said NASA has been working with
Halliburton, Shell, Baker-Hughes and
the Los Alamos National Laboratory to identify drilling technologies
that might work on Mars.

Rumsfeld
asks Supreme Court to overturn "enemy combatant" ruling
US Defense Secretary [and Reichwing sick-o] Donald Rumsfeld asked the
US Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that an American
citizen accused of plotting with al-Qaeda to set off a radioactive "dirty
bomb" could not be detained as an enemy combatant.

U.S.
Seeks Air Security Deals With Europe
The United States will try to strike deals with individual European
nations to place armed sky marshals on trans-Atlantic flights, a top
U.S. official said Friday.

9/11
director gave evidence to own inquiry
The panel set up to investigate why the United States failed to prevent
the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, faced angry questions Thursday
after revelations that two of its own senior officials were so closely
involved in the events under investigation that they have been interviewed
as part of the inquiry. Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director,
worked on the Bush-Cheney transition team as the new dictatorship
took power [literally, *took* power], advising his
longtime associate and former boss, national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice, on the incoming National Security Council.

Groups
Urge Probe Of Ashcroft's '00 Bid
Five public interest groups have asked the Justice Department to appoint
a special counsel to open a criminal investigation
of election law violations allegedly committed by Attorney General John
D. Ashcroft's campaign during his unsuccessful 2000 Senate reelection
campaign. [While they are at it, they should Investigate the Carnahan
plane crash --the one prior to the Wellstone plane crash. Isn't it odd
that only DEMOCRATS seem to be aboard planes that just happen to crash
during strikingly inconvenient, pre-election times? Also, the oddity
that only DEMOCRATS received letters steeped in 100,000 anthrax spores
just before 'Patriot' Act I needed signatures. But, I digress...]

Democrats
slam Bush on Pickering appointment
Democratic presidential candidates assailed Dictator Bush's decision
to bypass Congress and appoint Charles
W. Pickering to the federal appeals court, calling it a threat to civil
rights and the "ultimate hypocrisy"
after Bush's visit to the grave site of Martin Luther King Jr. Democrats
had accused the Mississippi judge of supporting
segregation as a young man, and pushing anti-abortion and anti-voting
rights views as a state lawmaker.

Bypassing
Congress, Bush Installs Judge on Federal
Appeals Court
In an election-year slap at filibustering Democrats, Dictator Bush
sidestepped Congress on Friday and installed
Mississippi judge Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court after
a two-year battle filled with racial, religious and regional argument.
[Bush should know all about *installation*, since he himself was
*installed* in a Reichwing coup d'etat in 2000.]

Whore
Court Won't Block Texas Redistrict Plan
The U.S. [Less-Than] Supreme Court refused Friday to block Texas from
holding congressional elections next fall under a hard-fought new map
that could cost the Democrats as many as six House seats.

Rep.
Wexler sues in push for ballot printouts
Arguing that he's exhausted other options and that time is running out
to ensure an accurate 2004 election, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca
Raton, turned to the courts Friday in his quest to require paper printouts
from electronic voting machines.

Source:
Rep. Harris Won't Run for Senate
U.S. Rep. [and GOP coupmeister] KKKatherine Harris, who gained international
attention for her role in the 2000 coup d'etat, will not enter the Republican
primary for U.S. Senate, The Associated Press learned Friday.

Environment
Groups Assail Bush Record
Environment News Service (ENS) --Dictator George W. Bush has the worst
environmental record in American history and shows no signs of changing
his tune, environmentalists said Wednesday at a press briefing.

Argentina
Limits Reactor Route
An Argentine judge has banned Southern California Edison from shipping
a decommissioned nuclear reactor from San Onofre within 200 miles of
his nation's coast, adding a new and risky complication to hauling the
atomic refuse to a disposal site.

Conn.
Gov. Woes Latest of 'Corrupticut' Scandals
Tales of ill-gotten buried gold, mayoral sleaze and a federal corruption
probe of the governor have rattled Connecticut's Yankee reputation and
exposed an underside to the state's image of quaint houses and rolling
New England hills. This week's launch of an investigation that could
lead to Republican Gov. John Rowland's
impeachment marked the latest blow to a state pundits have started calling
"Corrupticut."

Schwarzenegger
budget to slash health and education in California
--by Rafael Azul and Jerry Isaacs "California’s Republican governor,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, outlined a budget proposal January 9 that constitutes
a massive assault on health, education and other social service programs
upon which millions of people in the state rely."

City
workers: We were told to vote, work for NewsomS.F.
city attorney probes campaign charge by 9 street cleaners --Nine
members of a city street-cleaning crew say a top official of the San
Francisco Department of Public Works and supervisors of a nonprofit
organization funded by the city agency pressured them into voting for
Gavin Newsom for mayor and walking precincts for his campaign on election
day.

Arctic
Winds Leave Eastern U.S. Colder Than Iceland
Bone-chilling arctic winds and record low temperatures swept the U.S.
Northeast on Friday, closing schools in Boston, disrupting flights in
New York and raising the chance of New England power blackouts.

Associated Press A Northeastern Siege
--Skin-blistering cold and biting winds continued to curse the Northeast.
In Bangor, Me., ice and flames enveloped a historic building on Friday.

US
'lied' about media deaths
Washington and senior US commanders in Iraq are responsible for the
death of two journalists killed when a US tank crew fired at their hotel
in Baghdad last year, Reporters Without Borders said in a report on
Thursday. The Paris-based media watchdog branded the US government's
response to the incident as a "lie".

Spanish
politician labels Blair an 'imbecile' on live television
Poodle Tony Blair has been called "a complete
dickhead" by a leading Spanish politician live on television.
The comment was made by Jose Bono, one of the three most powerful figures
in the Socialist Party. His remarks were not intended to be heard, but
were recorded by a television team while he was talking to Joaquin Almunia,
a former Socialist leader. Mr Bono said: "Hey, and our colleague
Blair? He's a complete dickhead (un gilipollas
integral). He's an imbecile."

Soldier's
tapes pile pressure on Hoon to quit
Widow airs husband's recordings about fears of kit shortage and says
defence chief misled Commons --The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, came
under renewed pressure to resign yesterday after it emerged that a British
soldier had complained about the lack of vital equipment shortly before
he was killed in Iraq.

U.S.
weapons hunter won't return to Iraq - source
David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq, has told the CIA he
will not return to his post, a U.S. government source said on Thursday,
a move that critics could seize upon as a sign that he has given
up hope of finding banned arms.

Democrat
Challenges Bush on Iraqi Intelligence Lapse
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee is calling on Dictator
Bush to provide a public accounting next week of why prewar American
'intelligence' assessments that Iraq possessed illicit weapons now appear
to have been mistaken.

Bremer
Returns to U.S. for ConsultationsTens
of Thousands March in Iraq Against U.S. Policy
--L. Paul Bremer, the civilian dictator of Iraq, is returning to Washington
for discussions Friday with Dictator Bush's top foreign policy advisers
about a possible United Nations role in Iraq's six-month transition
to self-rule, U.S. officials said.

British
soldier's widow releases damning Iraq tape
The widow of a British soldier shot dead in Iraq while not wearing a
flak jacket has just released an audio tape made by her husband. On
it, he complains about the lack of proper equipment they had
been issued for battle. Sergeant Stephen Roberts made the tape the night
before he died.

Family
of slain soldier finds ally in Kennedy Fearing their son may have
died needlessly in Iraq, Massachusetts residents Brian and Alma
Hart want some honest answers from Dictator Bush. The Harts, of Bedford,
were guests of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., for Kennedy's speech
Wednesday before the Center for American Progress during which he condemned
the W-ar as a White House political
product systematically marketed for election gains.

Saddam
Hussein told his militia to avoid al Qaeda
Saddam Hussein warned his fedayeen militia against throwing in their
lot with the Islamic militants flocking to Iraq to fight US forces,
according to a document found with the deposed president when he was
captured.

Can
PM appease Bush?
--by Thomas Walkom "Some refer to George W. Bush as another Hitler.
This is a gross exaggeration. He has constructed no death camps and
only one concentration camp — at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba... True, both
masterfully used traumatic events at home (the 1933 Reichstag fire for
Hitler; 9/11 for Bush) to make a frightened and resentful populace accept
restrictions on civil liberties."

US
proposes defence training facility in Australia
The United States is interested in setting up a training facility in
Australia for both American and Australian defence forces. Earlier,
Prime Minister John Howard said the Government would be "recklessly
negligent" if it did not consider joining the United States' [failed]
missile defence program, known as the "Son of Star Wars".

Bush's
Power to Plan Trial of Detainees Is Challenged
Five uniformed military lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, have filed a brief with the Supreme Court, challenging the
basis of Dictator Bush's plan to use military tribunals without civilian
court review to try some of the detainees there.

Children
still held at Guantanamo: Pentagon
The United States has held three child detainees at its military base
in Guantanamo Bay for more than a year and the Pentagon said today it
has no plans to move or free them, despite international pressure.

U.S.
Pilot Held in Brazil in Fingerprint Spat
An American Airlines pilot was arrested at Sao Paulo International Airport
on Wednesday after making an obscene gesture while being photographed
by Brazilian immigration officers, police said. The pilot, Dale Robin
Hersh, raised his middle finger at police while undergoing recently
introduced Brazilian security measures that require U.S. citizens to
be fingerprinted and photographed upon entering the South American country.
Local media said the 52-year-old pilot was fined 36,000 reais ($12,775)
and released, but his passport was confiscated pending receipt of the
payment.

2
on 9/11 Panel Are Questioned on Earlier Security Roles
The executive director of the independent commission investigating the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has become a witness in the inquiry
and has been interviewed by his own staff about his involvement in shaping
the Bush dictatorship's early counterterrorism strategy, officials said
on Wednesday.

Protesters
Storm Barricades in Anti-Bush Protest at Luther-King GraveAround 800
protesters surged past Secret Service barricades in a bid to prevent
US dictator George Bush from visiting the grave of Martin Luther King
on what would have been the civil rights leader’s 75th birthday. Activists
booed, chanted and beat drums near the Atlanta grave site yesterday,
furious that Bush was there. The protesters pushed past Secret
Service barricades [Great!]
and pounded on the sides of city buses parked on the street in front
of King’s tomb to block them from the dictator’s motorcade.

Protesters
push past barricades at King's tombHundreds
of people pushed past barricades set up by the Secret Service to
protest Dictator Bush's visit to the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr.
on Thursday, which would have been the slain civil rights leader's 75th
birthday.

Bush's
King visit scorned
Dictator's self-invitation a problem, organizers say Dictator Bush's
visit on Thursday to observe what would have been the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s 75th birthday isn't sitting well with area tribute organizers.
They say Bush invited himself to their party and will potentially
force the cancellation of some events due to security concerns.
What's more, they say, Bush will profit from a fund-raiser he will
piggyback with his visit to Atlanta.

Industry
hopes soar with space planEnergy,
Aerospace Firms Have Lobbied NASA for Years --Lockheed Martin, Boeing,
and Dick Cheney's Halliburton interested
--An industry official who refused to be identified said the oil and
gas industry, including Halliburton,
would benefit considerably from technology that was developed for
drilling on Mars, including the tools, the miniaturization, the
drilling mechanism, the robotic systems and the control systems.

Report
finds lack of universal health insurance growing more costly
The federal Institute of Medicine called on Congress yesterday to strive
for universal medical coverage by 2010, saying the social costs from
millions going without health insurance more than justify the costs
of creating a health system that would guarantee coverage for all.

No
mad cow tests in Wash.
Federal agriculture officials did not test any commercial cattle for
mad cow disease through the first seven months of 2003 in Washington
state -- where the first U.S. case of the disease was detected last
month -- according to records obtained by United Press International.

GOP
Operative Digs Into Democrats' Backgrounds
(CT) As Gov. John G. Rowland was warning legislators last week that
the investigations into his conduct could lead to increased scrutiny
of their actions, a top Republican operative was doing a little scrutinizing
of his own. David Boomer, a longtime Rowland aide who was hired
by the state Republican Party to help the governor fight for his job,
researched several years of financial disclosure documents filed by
three high-ranking Democrats at the forefront of the legislature's move
to investigate and possibly impeach Rowland.

Study:
Network News Criticizes Dean MostHoward
Dean received significantly more criticism on network newscasts than
the other Democratic presidential contenders, who were the subjects
of more favorable coverage, according to a study released Thursday.

Democrats
and Networks Are at Odds Over Polling
Officials of the Democratic presidential campaigns and the Iowa Democratic
Party say they are worried that the major television networks will unduly
influence next Monday's caucuses by reporting poll results before the
voting is over.

US
accused of sabotaging obesity strategy
The US was accused yesterday of trying to scupper the World Health Organisation's
guidelines designed to curb the rising epidemic of obesity and disease,
which could be damaging to its food and drink corporations.

Northeast
U.S. in deep freeze—
and getting colder Temperatures weren’t expected to rise out of the
single digits Thursday across much of the Northeast, where Watertown,
N.Y., dropped to 31 below zero and
the morning wind chill was minus-46
degrees.

FBI
Chief Says Tribunals May Try 9/11 Suspects
The director of the FBI said yesterday that he expects the accused conspirators
in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid
Sheik Mohammed, to be tried by military tribunals
rather than by criminal courts.

Bush:
Go Fetch Me A Burger
Dictator Bush interrupted a White House meeting to tell his chief of
staff to go and get some cheeseburgers, it was revealed last night.
After waiting in vain for an earlier food order, Bush called in White
House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and said: "You're the chief of
staff. You think you're up to getting us some cheeseburgers?" The
story is one of further allegations about Bush's behaviour in the Oval
office from former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's account.

Surreal
moments serving a mythological president [sic]
The weekend after September 11, George Bush's former Treasury secretary,
Paul O'Neill, sat in a leather armchair at Camp David, the presidential
retreat, devouring a pile of intelligence documents on al-Qaeda handed
out by the CIA boss, George Tenet. A two-day crisis meeting of Mr Bush's
senior advisers had finally wound up. Leafing through the CIA documents,
Mr O'Neill was astonished to read plans for covert
assassinations around the globe designed to remove opponents of the
US Government. The plans had virtually no civilian checks
and balances. "What I was thinking is, 'I hope the President [sic] really
reads this carefully', Mr O'Neill said. "It's kind of his job. You can't
forfeit this much responsibility to unelected individuals. But I
knew he wouldn't."

O'Neill
Book Paints Devastating Portrait of Bush
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's portrait of George W.
Bush depicts a passive and superficial president [sic] surrounded
by right-wing ideologues who lacks the intellectual rigor or even the
curiosity to think through the effects of his policies.

Rumsfeld
Says He Contacted Ex-Official on Bush Book
'Defense' Secretary [and Reichwing nutball] Donald H. Rumsfeld, pulling
back one veil shrouding personal discussions among cabinet-level officials,
said Tuesday that he twice telephoned former Treasury Secretary Paul
H. O'Neill after hearing he was writing a "sour grapes" [?!?] book on
the Bush dictatorship.

Bush
admits he targeted Hussein from the startComments
could boost criticism of Bush's case for war against Iraq --Dictator
Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that he was mapping preparations
to topple Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as soon as he took office.
Bush's comments came in response to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's
contention in a new book that the 'chief executive' was gunning for
Hussein nine months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two years
before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Kennedy
Calls War a 'Political Product' Marketed by Bush
Dictator Bush marketed the war on Iraq as a "political product"
to influence the 2002 elections and is doing so again this year, Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged yesterday in a scathing speech accusing
Bush of putting politics ahead of national security.

Kennedy:
Bush Broke Faith with Americans on Iraq
Fueled by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's blasts at the Bush
dictatorship, the U.S. Senate's leading liberal Democrat Wednesday accused
the Republican White House of breaking faith with Americans by forcing
them into an unnecessary war with Iraq.

Spain's
PM Says Bush Acts Like an EmperorDictator
Bush is seen in Europe as an emperor,
and many Europeans find that difficult to accept, says Spanish Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar."The
combination of being a Republican, of being an emperor, a Texan and
outspoken is really a bad mix," Aznar said in an interview Wednesday
in The Washington Post.

W-ar
Crimes Complaint Against Franks Tossed
The Belgian High Court threw out a war crimes complaint Wednesday against
retired U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, backing a lower court ruling that Belgium
had no jurisdiction in the case against the commander of the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq.

What,
again? And then, the obligatory exoneration and additional contracts
will surely follow...Pentagon
Studies Halliburton Pricing The Pentagon said on Wednesday its
inspector general was looking into a pricing "irregularity" related
to fuel brought into Iraq by Vice pResident
Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton.

At
Least 2 Iraqis Killed by Suicide Bomber
At least two civilians were killed here early today in a suicide bomb
blast at an Iraqi police station, police officials said, adding that
they opened fire at the bomber's car as it was driven toward the station.
But a senior American military official later offered a different account,
saying the explosion was not the result of a suicide bombing. He said
that the bomb had been planted in a car parked outside the station,
and that at least five people were killed.

U.S.
Soldiers' Suicide Rate Is Up in Iraq
U.S. soldiers in Iraq are killing themselves at a high rate despite
the work of special teams sent to help troops deal with combat stress,
the Pentagon's top doctor said Wednesday.

Suicides
of U.S. Troops Rising in Iraq -Pentagon
At least 21 U.S. troops have committed
suicide in Iraq, a growing toll that represents one of every seven American
"non-hostile" deaths since the war began last March, the Pentagon said
on Wednesday.

Over
60 Bulgarian Soldiers Quit Iraq-Bound Unit
A total of 62 Bulgarian soldiers have quit a peacekeeping unit due to
replace troops in Iraq after a car bomb killed five of their compatriots
last month, Chief of Staff Nikola Kolev said Wednesday.

Howard
turns up Hutton heat on Blair
Michael Howard today kept up the pressure on Poodle Tony Blair, claiming
the prime minister was in a "desperately dodgy" position over his role
in the "naming strategy" that led to the outing of David Kelly.

Are
we safer? Not as long as al-Qaeda lurks
--by Joseph L. Galloway "Have we permitted ourselves to become
bogged down in Iraq, in what at best is a sideshow in the Global War
on Terrorism, while diverting precious manpower and resources away from
the real objective? More than a few analysts believe that is precisely
what has happened - most recently Dr. Jeffrey Record, author and visiting
professor at the Air War College."

Military
lawyers criticize tribunal
Five U.S. military lawyers assigned to defend prisoners captured in
Afghanistan in a newly created military tribunal filed a sharply worded
"friend of the court" brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, arguing
against the tribunal's legitimacy, the
detention of the prisoners without hearings, and the Bush dictatorship's
attempt to have the judicial branched "usurped."[Hmm... 'legitimacy' and 'usurping'.
Those two words should be familiar to Bush, since he is NOT the legitimate
president, and he usurped the 2000 election.]

Cuba
detainees seek right to appeal
The Bush dictatorship's plan to use military tribunals to try foreign
terrorism suspects should allow appeals to civilian courts, five military
lawyers assigned to suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Wednesday
in papers filed with the Supreme Court.

Brazil
Fines U.S. Pilot for Making Gesture
An American Airlines pilot was fined nearly $13,000 Wednesday on accusations
he made an obscene gesture when being photographed at the airport as
part of entry requirements for U.S. citizens, officials said.

Brazil
continues to check US IDs
The Brazilian Government will go on with its policy of extra security
checks on US citizens. At present all US visitors to Brazil must be
photographed and fingerprinted. The measures are a response to similar
rules recently introduced in the United States.

Victims'
families renew request for 9/11 records
Families of victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack said
Wednesday they will go back to court to find out more about the final
hours of their relatives' lives on September 11, 2001.

Seeking
to Limit the F-Word
U.S. Federal Communications Commission [and Reichwing corpora-terrorist]
Chairman Michael Powell has proposed barring the word "f+++" from most
radio and broadcast television, regardless of the context, sources close
to the issue say.

Alabama
Court Rejects Moore's Challenge
The Alabama Supreme Court rejected Roy Moore's request to cancel the
appointment of a seven-member replacement court to hear his appeal of
his ouster as chief justice.

Religious
left creates lobby to oust Bush from White House
A new lobby recently opened an office near the US Congress, but instead
of sporting designer suits, its disciples wear clerical collars: They
belong to the religious left and say their top goal is to oust Dictator
George. W Bush from the White House.

Whackjob
Bush, mindless of the 5-trillion-dollar deficit
he alone has created, calls
for a return to 'Space Exploration' Dictator Bush sounded a
new call for manned space exploration today, reviving a vision put forth
by his father 15 years ago: returning to the Moon and eventually sending
astronauts on to Mars.[As
long as Bush and his junta are sent to Mars, I'm all for it.]

Bush
is from Mars when it comes to budget
(Palm Beach Post) "Last month, the Bush White House reportedly
was searching for a 'Kennedy Moment,' announcement of some big, non-Iraq
issue to define the reelection campaign. In fact, George W. Bush today
will announce a 'Bush Moment' -- taken from President George H.W. Bush...
And now, Mr. Bush will propose something else that the country doesn't
need and can't afford. If there's much more of this, the president [sic]
will be closer to a 'Herbert Hoover Moment.'"

Rubin
warns against growing U.S. deficits
The U.S. federal budget is on an unsustainable path, and in the absence
of any significant policy changes, federal deficits could total around
$5 trillion over the next decade, former
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said Tuesday.

U.S.
Economic Policies Under Fire at Americas Summit
Latin American leaders told Dictator Bush on Tuesday "perverse"
U.S.-backed economic policies had failed their nations although they
also agreed to fight corruption and 'terrorism' together. [That's
odd, given that Bush himself is the source of most of the corruption
and terrorism in the world.]

Enron
Wizard Admits Conspiracy
The mastermind behind secretive partnerships that led to the collapse
of Enron Corp. pleaded guilty yesterday to two conspiracy charges and
agreed to help investigators learn what the company's top executives
knew about its crumbling finances.

Judge
Upholds $520M Microsoft Verdict
A judge upheld a jury's decision requiring Microsoft Corp. to pay $520
million on grounds that its popular Internet Explorer browser
infringed on a patent.

J.P.
Morgan Chase to Acquire Bank One in $60 Billion Deal
J.P. Morgan Chase has agreed to acquire Bank One for $60 billion in
a deal that would realign the competitive landscape among the world's
global banking giants, executives close to the talks said today.
The merger would create a financial behemoth and a true rival to the
world's largest banking company, Citigroup.

Panel
to Investigate Connecticut Governor
The Connecticut Legislature will form a bipartisan committee to investigate
the scandal surrounding [Republican]
Gov. John G. Rowland and recommend whether he should be impeached,
the leader of the state House said Wednesday.

Will
there be a paper trail?Cowlitz
County launches e-voting Cowlitz County voters in the military
and overseas now register and vote online for the fall 2004 elections.
The county Auditor's Office, in cooperation
with the U.S. Department of Defense and the Office of the
Secretary of State, joined the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting
Experiment along with seven other counties in Washington and 50 counties
in the United States.

How
the Iowa caucuses workNeighbors
sip coffee, tout their candidates --Unlike primaries, where machines
count the votes, the Iowa caucuses are dynamic and intimate, a cousin
of the New England town-hall meeting. They are performed at the most
fundamental political level — in each of the state’s 1,993 precincts.

Moseley
Braun poised to end campaign
Carol Moseley Braun, the former senator and ambassador who waged a campaign
for the Democratic presidential nomination, intends to withdraw from
the race, sources tell MSNBC. The candidate will formally withdraw on
Thursday and endorse Howard Dean at an event at an Iowa high school.

More
voters take notice of Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich is running for president, and many of the people whose
automatic response once was "Who?" have a growing awareness of the candidate
out in far left field.

Court
Begins Hearing Nev. Nuke Waste Case
Opponents of a planned nuclear waste dump in Nevada argued in court
Wednesday the government has failed to ensure that the public will
be protected when radiation from the entombed waste reaches its peak
hundreds of thousands of years from now.

White
House seeks control on health, safetyThe
Office of Management and Budget wants to have the final say on releasing
emergency declarations to the public. Under a new proposal, the
White House would decide what and
when the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease,
an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis [likely
caused/engineered by the Bush dictatorship]. The White House Office
of Management and Budget is trying to gain final
control over release of emergency declarations from the federal
agencies responsible for public health, safety and the environment.
[Do we trust the Bush regime --amongst the greatest passel of liars
to ever wreak havoc on God's green earth --with this responsibility?
NO, we do not.]

US
military 'brutalised' journalistsNews
agency demands inquiry after American forces in Iraq allegedly treated
camera crew as enemy personnel --The international news agency Reuters
has made a formal complaint to the Pentagon following the "wrongful"
arrest and apparent "brutalisation" of three of its staff this
month by US troops in Iraq. "They were brutalised, terrified and
humiliated for three days," one source said. "It was pretty grim
stuff. There was mental and physical abuse." He added: "It
makes you wonder what happens to ordinary Iraqis."

Rumsfeld
Warned of US War CrimesUS
military forces in Iraq 'appear' to have committed war crimes
by detaining relatives of suspected insurgents or wanted former officials,
and demolishing their homes, the US-based advocacy group Human Rights
Watch has warned.

Corroborating
O'Neill's AccountOfficial
Confirms Claims That Saddam Was Bush’s Focus Before 9/11--Dictator
Bush ordered the Pentagon to explore the possibility of a ground invasion
of Iraq well before the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001,
an official told ABCNEWS, confirming the account former Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill gives in his new book.

'Secret'
O'Neill document from Cheney's Energy Project
A document purporting to back former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's
charge the White House prepared for the Iraq war long before 9-11 is
not from the Pentagon as claimed, according to a Defense Department
consultant who closely follows Iraq. The document, says Laurie Mylroie,
an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, but was "part
of the Energy Project that was the focus
of Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney's attention before the 9-11 strikes."
[Note: the content/tone of this article is Reichwing ('World Net
Daily'), but it makes you wonder what other nuggets lurk in Cheney's
secret energy project. Cheney's Energy
Project documents need to be made public.]

O'Neill
Denies Charges on Book Documents
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on Tuesday denied that classified
documents were used in a controversial new book in which he paints an
unflattering portrait of Dictator Bush. He softened some of his criticism
in the face of a strong counterattack by the dictatorship.

Wesley
Clark Calls for Probe on Iraq War
Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark on Tuesday criticized
the timing of an investigation of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill
and suggested Dictator Bush was more concerned with "political
security'' than national security. "They didn't wait 24
hours in initiating an investigation on Paul O'Neill,'' Clark said.
"They're not concerned about national security. But they're
really concerned about political security. I think they've got their
priorities upside down.''

Bush
'on par with German war plan'
America's war on terror was likened yesterday to Germany's strategy
during two world wars. Dictator Bush was warned that his campaign
could drag the US into conflicts with countries that posed no real threat.
The invasion of Iraq was an unnecessary part of America's "dangerously
indiscriminate and ambitious" war on terror, said a report published
by the US Army War College.

The
Awful Truth
--by Paul Krugman "The point is that the credentials of the
critics just keep getting better. How can Howard Dean's assertion
that the capture of Saddam hasn't made us safer be dismissed as bizarre,
when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in
Iraq was a 'detour' that undermined the fight against terror? How can
charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking
for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of
Mr. O'Neill's revelations? So far administration officials have attacked
Mr. O'Neill's character but haven't refuted any of his facts."

O'Neill's
take / Lifting the veil on the Bush administration
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) "Thank you, Paul O'Neill. Comments by
the former Treasury secretary and Alcoa head on how the Bush administration
works and how it approached war with Iraq can provide the American people
useful insights in this election year... What Mr. O'Neill's and others'
recent analysis of the Iraq war, so far resulting in 341 combat deaths
and costing billions in deficit dollars, leaves out is, if it wasn't
weapons of mass destruction or a link to Sept. 11, then what was
it that drove the administration? Oil, Israel, war profits for U.S.
companies, the re-[s]election of
Mr. Bush as a 'war president [sic]'?"

Bush
'outed' on Iraq
(Toronto Star) "And so it comes out. Invading Iraq to topple Saddam
Hussein was a top priority at U.S. President [sic] George Bush's very
first National Security Council meeting — seven full months before the
Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks Bush then cited as a reason for 'pre-emptively'
disarming Saddam's regime... This White House has forfeited any right
to have its utterances taken on faith. Right up to the March, 2003,
invasion, Bush led the world to think war might be avoided."

Former
cabinet member: Bush pushed war with Iraq long before 9/11
--by Patrick Martin "Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, forced
out of office a year ago, has revealed in a new book that the Bush administration
began high-level discussions of invading and conquering Iraq as soon
as Bush entered the White House in January 2001. O’Neill’s account demonstrates
that war with Iraq was decided on long before the terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that the Bush administration
seized on September 11 as a pretext.

US
troops shoot 4 Iraqi civilians
American soldiers killed at least four Iraqi civilians yesterday in
Fallujah, a town at the heart of the anti-US insurgency while a US Apache
helicopter crashed nearby, probably after being hit by ground fire.

Helicopter
downed
An Army Apache attack helicopter went down yesterday apparently because
of hostile fire - the third aircraft lost this month in the volatile
region west of Baghdad. Occupation troops killed three Iraqis in restive
cities outside the capital, police said.

Ghost
Troop — 3/7 Cavalry — R. I. P. America's Disgraced Dead from the Battle
of Baghdad
--by Captain Eric Holmes May, MI, USA "...Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cavalry
is the unit comprised of all the unacknowledged dead soldiers from
the Battle of Baghdad, who are receiving no just reckoning or recognition
because the media lied — and continue to lie – about the Battle of Baghdad.
We have a Watergate cover up on our hands; worse, we have a war.
I have assumed command of Ghost Troop and, according to the oath I swore
when I accepted commission as an Army officer, I have self-mobilized
(under my former rank of captain) to oppose the Bush cover up of
the unpleasant realities of Iraq — especially of Ghost Troop, 3/7
Cavalry. I consider myself to be in a state of revolution against
an unconstitutional, unconscionable abuse of the public’s right
to know — the first freedom guaranteed to Americans."

U.S.,
Saudis Prepare For Bolstered Military Training
Saudi Arabia and the United States are completing details for an accelerated
military training schedule for 2004. The U.S. 'Defense' Department
has drafted a schedule for bolstered military training of the Saudi
military and National Guard over the next year.

Uzbek
Air Crash Kills 37, Including UN Official
A Soviet-built Yak-40 airliner crashed on Tuesday evening as it approached
the Uzbek capital Tashkent, killing 37 people, including a senior U.N.
official, and scattering body parts over a wide area.

U.S.
Considers Plan to Base Warplanes on Guam
The Pentagon is considering permanently placing warplanes on Guam, which
could become a key outpost in the event of war on the Korean
Peninsula or the Taiwan Strait, a senior Air Force commander said on
Tuesday.

Study
Raises Projection For 'Dirty Bomb' Toll
A well-executed "dirty bomb" attack on a U.S. city could expose hundreds
of people to potentially lethal amounts of radiation, researchers said
yesterday in a Pentagon-funded study that sharply raises estimates of
the human toll from such an attack. [Hmm... WHY does the Bush dictatorship
keep focusing on a 'dirty bomb' attack?]

Military
Lawyers Question Tribunal RulesIn
Supreme Court Brief, Detainees' Defenders Say Constitution Requires
Civilian Review --Five military lawyers assigned to defend detainees
at Guantanamo Bay are planning to tell the U.S. Supreme Court that some
of the rules drawn up for special military trials are unconstitutional.

Court
OKs Police Roadblocks
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police may set up roadblocks to
collect tips about crimes, rejecting concerns that authorities might
use the checkpoints to fish for unrelated suspicious activity. The 6-3
decision allows officers to block traffic and ask motorists for help
in 'solving crimes' [enhancing the Bush police state]. Critics
have complained that authorities might misuse the power, disguising
dragnets as "informational checkpoints."

Muslim
Groups' IRS Files Sought by Senate Panel
Hill Panel Probing Alleged 'Terror' Ties; Muslim leaders decry tactics.
The Senate Finance Committee has asked the Internal Revenue Service
to turn over confidential tax and financial records,
including donor lists, on dozens of Muslim charities and foundations
as part of a widening congressional investigation into alleged ties
between tax-exempt organizations and 'terrorist' groups, according to
documents and officials.

Treasury
breaks word on e-mail anonymity
The U.S. Treasury Department plans to publish nearly 10,000 e-mail addresses
on the Web, violating its privacy promise to Americans who used e-mail
to comment on a government proceeding.

I'm
Not Paranoid, Am I?
--by Ken Schram "Remember my story about the frog? Put a frog in
a pot of boiling water and it just jumps right out. But put the frog
in a pot of warm water and slowly bring that water to a boil and the
frog just sits in there until it croaks. We're the frog, folks. How
long before our mail is screened, or our phone conversations monitored?
How long before there are 'safety' checkpoints for us to go through
when crossing state borders. Too far-fetched? Well, that's the beauty
of the warm water/slow boil approach: cooked before we even realize
the flame's been on high."

President
[sic] aiming at New Mexico's forests
The Bush dictatorship has opened the nation's wildest forest to devastating
commercial interests at huge benefit to his campaign but at large cost
to taxpayers, says Robert Peek, who warns that New Mexico's wild
forest lands appear to be among those next on Bush's list. "Two
days before Christmas, President [sic] George W. Bush was busy playing
Grinch with America's greatest wild forest."

Bush
Plans $1.5 Billion Drive for Promotion of Marriage
Regime officials say they are planning an extensive s-election-year
initiative to promote marriage, especially among low-income couples,
and they are weighing whether Dictator Bush should promote the plan
next week in his State of the disUnion
address.

Ex-Enron
Exec Fastow, Wife OK Guilty Plea
Former Enron finance chief Andrew Fastow and his wife have agreed to
plead guilty for their roles in a massive accounting scandal that brought
down the energy giant in 2001, sources told The Associated Press on
Tuesday.

In-House
Audit Says Wal-Mart Violated Labor Laws
An internal audit now under court seal warned top executives at Wal-Mart
Stores three years ago that employee records at 128 stores pointed to
extensive violations of child-labor laws and state regulations requiring
time for breaks and meals.

Conn.
Gov. Rowland Again Refuses to Quit
[Republican] Gov. John G. Rowland
said Tuesday that he is not swayed by the growing number of calls that
he resign for accepting gifts from state employees and a state contractor
and then lying about it.

Reichwing
Whackjob Sen. Miller to Back Bush
U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia 'Democrat' who has frequently broken
with his party to support Republican policies, has agreed to campaign
for Dictator Bush's reselection,
a campaign spokesman said on Tuesday.

Democrats
See a New Urgency in Health Care
The Democratic Party's presidential candidates are proposing, once again,
major new programs for guaranteed, affordable health insurance, setting
the stage for one of the starker contrasts with Dictator Bush in the
general election campaign. Senator John Edwards, the North Carolina
Democrat, declared that it was time to "make health care a birthright
for every child born in America, for the first time in American history."

Dean
Wins D.C. Democratic Primary
Howard Dean is in the lead, but Reverend Al Sharpton is posting a strong
showing, as results continue to come in from the D.C. primary.

Ex-President
Carter to Offer Support for Dean
Former President Jimmy Carter will offer support for Democratic White
House hopeful Howard Dean in a joint appearance in Georgia on the eve
of the Iowa caucuses, campaign aides said on Tuesday.

Iowa's
Dark Art of Caucusing Is Turning a Bit More Public
The caucuses will convene at 6:30 p.m. as participants arrive and sign
in. Some could have a dozen or so people show up, others in the hundreds.
After candidate letters are read and nominating papers circulated, the
hat is passed for money to help pay for the caucuses...

Franken
signs with liberal radio
Progress Media planned to announce Tuesday that it has reached an agreement
with comedian and best-selling author Al Franken to host a live, three-hour
daily broadcast that would form the anchor of the programming schedule,
according to people familiar with the matter.